


The Storyteller's Apprentice

by CullinanKatsudon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Long, M/M, Storytelling, air pirate guest stars, rename the triplets, special effects FTW, stick to the script, there will be dirigibles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-10-03 06:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CullinanKatsudon/pseuds/CullinanKatsudon
Summary: Alternate universe retelling of Yuri on Ice rolled back roughly 100 years, set in a steampunk world. Keeping as close to the original anime storyline as possible inside the new setting, with one major alteration: instead of competing on ice, Yuuri, Victor, and the rest of the Grand Prix finalists are competing as storytellers. They have short and long programs, the same as the skating world; they have costumes and coaches, and they use the steampunk element aether to power their illusions as they weave their tales.There he was, the man himself. Victor Nikiforov, five-time Grand Prix Storytelling Champion, World Cup Storytelling Master, living legend.As he spied Yuri, the living legend stood, rising naked out of the water and smiled as he held out a hand. “Hello Yuri. I’ve come to be your new storytelling coach. I’m going to take you back to the Grand Prix Final. And this time you’re going to win.”





	1. The Tale of the Sleeping Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamykia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamykia/gifts).



After a decade of training, Katsuki Yuuri had clawed his way to his first Grand Prix Storytelling Competition to perform on the same stage as his hero Victor Nikiforov…only to disgrace himself with an error-riddled performance he’d barely been able to finish and a last place showing.

His face was enflamed during the entire trip from Sochi, his red-hot shame mingling with the queasiness from the hangover he had from the Storyteller’s banquet the night before. He was, naturally, in the cheapest mode of transport possible, taking the standing seats at the bottom of the airship to get over the Caspian Sea, which meant he ran to the lavatory to dry heave despite the pricey vial of medicine he’d purchased from the steward to keep his airsickness at bay. He never travelled well, but he certainly didn’t do well hungover. He wished Celestino hadn’t let him drink. He hoped he hadn’t done anything to embarrass himself. Though what could be worse than stumbling over all his lines, flubbing his accents, forgetting half his verses, and failing his special effects, he didn’t know.

He boarded the express train once they landed in Russia, declining the meal cart until his stomach pinched in hunger, and then he huddled against the wall with a bowl of ramen, slurping noodles and scolding himself for his failure to realize his dream.

His whole life, he’d idolized Victor. The Russian storyteller had been a legend since he’d appeared on the circuit at fourteen, one of the youngest to advance from his apprenticeship and become a full-fledged storyteller. Yuuri had discovered Victor when his friend Yuko had dragged him to the theater to see the moving picture demonstration, and there the man himself been, long hair flowing about him as he spun in the flickering frame, casting a spell with his words…and over Yuuri’s heart.

Yuuri had seen storytellers before. They’d come through Hasetsu and the neighboring villages now and again, sharing their stories and impressing the locals with their aether-powered special effects. It was true, Japan had struggled a bit to join the modern era, but they embraced all the steampunk technologies now. They weren’t as advanced as Italy or Russia or the Americas—certainly they couldn’t hold a candle to Canada or Mexico—but they certainly weren’t Austria. They were slightly behind France, though culturally the countries couldn’t be more different. But they did have the tech, and they hungered for more. Japanese tinkers were always introducing new means to connect to the outside world, and there was great pressure on young men like Yuuri to help Japan take its rightful place as a global power before China stole their place on the world stage.

Of course, the pressure was relatively light in a fishing village like Hasetsu. Every so often someone would wonder that he hadn’t gone to Tokyo or even Kumamoto to take a grander job than helping out at his family’s onsen resort, but no one honestly expected him to leave.

Yuuri hadn’t considered going anywhere either, not until the day he’d first seen Victor’s image flickering on the screen. There had been other storytellers in the demonstration film as well, but none of them had been like Victor. Whether he told a familiar story or something completely new, he could captivate his audience with nothing more than a wink of his bright blue eyes and a quirk of his heart-shaped lips. His hair, so blond it was almost silver, shined when he moved, glinting in the stage lights and rippling in the subtle wind of his aether. Back then, Victor had kept his hair long—that long hair had done things to Yuuri. Confused him. Made him yearn in ways he still didn’t understand, not fully.

“I’m going to tell stories like Victor someday,” he’d told Yuko after the performance.

She’d thought it had been a brilliant idea, and the two of them had practiced for hours that summer, telling each other stories, spending their allowances on aether so they could mimic Victor’s special effects. The local actress, now retired, Minako, had taken him on as an apprentice, and become his unofficial coach as a favor to his mother, one of her oldest friends.  Yuko’s family owned the theater, and even when Yuko wasn’t practicing with him, they let Yuuri rehearse as many hours as he wanted, a habit that continued until he declared, five years ago, that he was moving to the Americas to study with a proper coach.

“I’m going to become a real storyteller and tour the world,” he’d told them all, boasting foolishly. “I’m going to make it to the Grand Prix Storytelling Competition and become the pride of Japan.”

_And show Victor I’m as good a storyteller as he is,_ he added inside his private thoughts. _Perhaps even that I’m better._

The whole town of Hasetsu had cheered him on, many of the residents pressing omamori into his hands and wishing him luck as he made his journey overseas to study. Now they _did_ want him to leave, and they were happy to send him away, certain he would return with the pride of Japan full upon his shoulders.

And what had he given them in repayment for their faith in him? A performance so dismal he was ashamed to show his face.

Yet he had nowhere else to go now but home now. He’d cut ties with Celestino after the banquet, declining to finish the rest of the tour. What was the point? He didn’t have what it took to compete. Chiefly, he didn’t have the money to continue.

He poked at a piece of pork with his chopstick as he remembered that moment in the dressing room, when the door had burst open and there had been the other Yuri—Plisetsky, the junior apprentice not yet competing without his coach’s supervision but who studied under the same mentor and traveled in the same troupe as Victor. The Yuri who had kicked in the door to Yuuri’s dressing room while he’d been weeping over his miserable failure and informed him he should plan on staying in Japan for the next season, since he clearly wasn’t talented enough to be a storyteller. Yuri Plisetsky would be _thrilled_ to hear Yuuri Katsuki had gone home.

_At least_ he _noticed you._

The miso broth curdled in Yuuri’s belly as he had to admit that oh, no, Victor had noticed him. When they’d been packing up, preparing to leave the venue to go to the banquet, Yuuri had let his gaze linger too long, let it go too sharp when Victor’s shout out to Plisetsky had made him foolishly think his idol had called to him instead.

And when Victor had caught him watching him in the lobby? He’d mistaken Yuuri for a fan and _asked if he wanted a commemorative photograph._ He’d even waved over his assistant and his own fancy photograph-making machine.

Obviously, yes, Yuuri _was_ a fan. This wasn’t incorrect. But he hadn’t wanted to be _only_ a fan, not in that moment. He’d wanted to be a peer. Except that title was reserved for Plisetsky, who had won the junior championships and hadn’t spent the majority of the senior performances weeping in the changing rooms. So instead of taking a photo or even declining the opportunity, Yuuri had turned away without a word.

Though he’d taken a standing section of the airship, Yuuri purchased a second-class seat on the train, because this leg of the trip would take days and he couldn’t go any longer without sleeping. He also indulged in the consumption of his other luxury, the purchase he did feel slightly guilty over, though not terribly much. He’d told himself it was research, though in his heart he knew it was nothing short of indulgence. But when he’d seen the aether-powered audio-visual recordings of Victor’s performance, he couldn’t say no, even though the purchase of them was why he’d stood the whole way from Sochi to China and why he was eating bowls of miso once a day the whole way home and nothing more. Yet as he removed his glasses, held the stereo viewer to his eyes and placed the ear-phones over his head, he vowed he would have walked all the way back to Japan and eaten mud if it meant being able to hold Victor in his hands like this.

_Magical. The man was nothing short of magical._

“There’s enough aether in the stereo viewer to to let you watch AVs for a month straight,” the salesman had assured him. Yuuri was at best a tinker-hobbyist, but even he’d known this boast was an exaggeration. He hoped there was enough, at least, to let him watch for three days, because this was what he intended to do: watch Victor’s performances over and over, only breaking to nap and stretch his legs by moving to a new car.

He already knew all Victor’s routines by heart, every flick of the man’s wrist, every nuance of his expression as he told his tales, but there was something about being able to drink them in at such a close, personal range. The stereo viewer made it seem as if he could stick his tongue out and lick the man, taste him in his mouth. The very thought made Yuuri’s senses short-circuit, his breathing turn erratic. At first, he had to stop occasionally and compose himself before continuing. Eventually he acclimated enough to continue, but he couldn’t stop the quickening of his heartbeat.

_It’s as if I’m inches from him. As if every move he makes, I move with him, as if we’re sliding across the stage together in a dance._

For hours Yuuri watched, until the pinch of his belly, the aches in his legs, and the demands of his bladder forced him to rise and attend to his body. He’d worn the stereo viewer so long he felt drunk, and in fact several of the passengers accused him of being so, especially when he went the wrong direction down the aisle and ended up accidentally wandering into an empty cargo car. Murmuring apologies and bowing, he shuffled back the other direction, relieved himself at the lavatory and found the dining car, where he stood at the ramen bar and slurped up a bowl of miso.

He was tipping the last of the broth into his mouth when the thought occurred to him, when his overtired, addled brain came up with the wonderful, terrible idea.

The cargo car behind his passenger car truly had seemed empty. It seemed as if there might have been an automobile inside, and nothing else.

The cars were quite soundproof, between one another. No one could hear anything going on inside one, from the outside. Say, for example, if someone were rehearsing a storytelling routine.

It was a mad, _mad_ notion he was having. Certainly it wasn’t the right thing to be doing. Yet none of this stopped Yuuri from spending the last of his money on food and drink he could store easily in his satchel, from collecting everything from his soft, expensive seat and sneaking back into the cargo car, where he made a nest in a dark corner with burlap bags, watched Victor’s performances a few more times…then began to imitate them.

He didn’t have the right aether, but a good storyteller didn’t need aether for practice anyway, or a costume. It wasn’t about the effects. Yuuri liked to rely on technique and delivery, on his personal style and charm. In the shadowy corners of the cargo car, however, Yuuri mimicked Victor’s style, at least at first. He’d watched the performance so many times, now at such close range, it was easy to mimic every nuance.

Yet as he kept repeating them, he found himself…tweaking subtly. Just a bit, not to correct but to adjust to fit his own way. When he got dizzy or his throat became too dry, he stopped to eat or drink, but otherwise he kept going. In the event that nature called, he slipped out the back door to the connecting third class car, where he found not only a lavatory but an elderly woman with a pot of rice who insisted he take some and a cup of tea to pour over it. He knew enough Chinese to thank her, and whenever he emerged from the car again, she would repeat the kindness, never asking him for anything more.

In between trips to the third class car, Yuuri watched more of Victor’s performances, napped, and attempted to copy more of his idol’s works. He wasn’t sure why he did it. He only knew that though he was barely eating or sleeping, that he was dirty and disoriented and one discovery away from arrest and dishonor, he felt alive and renewed in a way he hadn’t thought possible given the defeat he’d just endured. When the train finally stopped in Shanghai, he’d fully memorized Victor’s current season story, and he’d made inroads on several of his exhibition pieces and former season pieces. Yuuri felt renewed, restored, and hopeful, ready now to face his hometown, even though he knew it wouldn’t be the reunion he’d been wanting. He would face his disgrace with honor, he vowed to himself, and he’d begin now, repaying his first debts. Instead of attempting to depart the train through his second class car, he exited once again through the third class section, finding the old woman who had been so kind to him. At first he feared he was too late, but he found her with a family near an ox cart, and he hurried up to her, bowing low.

“Excuse me, madam, but please allow me to thank you properly for your kindness to me on the train.” He dug into his satchel and pulled out a silk scarf, part of his costume from his now abandoned season. He presented it to her with another bow.

The old woman’s eyes grew wide, and she covered her mouth, right before she burst into tears.

“Eh, what is this?” Another woman, younger but who could only be the woman’s daughter, turned to Yuuri and frowned at him. She looked him up and down and began speaking in only slightly accented Japanese. “What are you doing to upset my mother?”

“Nothing, nothing—I’m only trying to offer her a gift, please, madam, for helping me on the train.” He held the scarf forward again. “I’m…I’m a storyteller, you see, and I was rehearsing in an empty car. But every time I came through third class to use the lavatory, she would insist on feeding me tea with rice, and smiling at me. It lifted my spirits so much. I wanted to give her this part of my costume in thanks before I continued on my journey.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “You’re a storyteller? Like Victor Nikiforov, that handsome Russian?”

Yuuri’s cheeks stained pink. “Yes. In fact, I was rehearsing his most recent story, for practice. To improve my own craft, you see, I wanted to study his.”

The woman’s eyes widened briefly, and then she bent her head to speak quietly in rapid-fire Chinese to her mother, who gasped, looked at Yuuri, then whispered back to her daughter in even faster Mandarin. Eventually they both turned to face him, at which point the daughter spoke once more. “My mother couldn’t possibly accept part of your costume. It’s too fancy for our simple village. But she would be happy to hear your performance of Victor Nikiforov’s story instead as your thanks.”

Yuuri panicked at the thought of performing publicly, all his good feelings from his practice evaporating like mist in the morning sun. “But—but I don’t have any aether, and I need to hurry to the docks to catch my ship for Japan!”

“I have two canisters full right here. We’re aether miners. As for your ship, I’ll take you myself in our ox cart. You won’t be late, I promise.” She grinned at him. “Now let’s see this performance.”

The aether was entirely the wrong kind, unrefined and fitful, and in the end Yuuri had to use up the last of his own meager supply to provide an even more pathetic, thin replica of what he knew to be Victor Nikiforov’s breathtaking backdrop as he regaled his audience with _The Tale of the Sleeping Prince_. On Victor’s stage, magical birds chirped in silver-tinted trees as Victor led the audience through enchanted forests and over rippling meadows. Yuuri was barely able to manage trees, full stop, and his leaves looked like something a schoolboy had drawn with a wax crayon. His moon and stars didn’t wink in the sky with such splendor to make the real moon and stars ashamed for their imperfections, but rather they appeared to hover nervously, winking in and out as Yuuri’s aether threatened to give way. And as for a costume, he had none—the only thing he had with him was his own performance’s costume, which was so far from accurate it was better to do the thing in the tunic borrowed from the old woman’s husband, cinched at the waist with the old woman’s shawl.

His performance itself, though, he did feel good about. Even before he saw the wide-eyed looks from his audience, before he heard their gasps and felt them falling under his spell, Yuuri knew his practicing had paid off. _If only I could have the real Victor with me, if only he could teach me how to do this with my own work,_ he thought, allowing himself one moment of yearning before returning to the performance. Unlike his own storytelling, his borrowed performance of Victor’s tale had not a beat out of place, not an intonation out of harmony. It was a copy, but it was also _his_ copy. His love song to Victor Nikiforov, he supposed. He surrendered to that spirit, there in the dusty corner of a Chinese alley, to a growing crowd of total strangers. The story was a tragic one, and when it concluded with the prince giving his soliloquy, calling out to his imaginary lover, Yuuri professed his love along with the protagonist.

“I hear you—I hear you, my darling, I know you’re there, crying far away. Have you been abandoned as well?” He stalked up to the edge of his storyteller circle, letting go of a flare of aether, making it pop and send a soft explosion of sparks behind him, making the audience gasp. He kept his gaze fixed on a point in the distance, as if he could see Victor standing there, watching him. “Come now. Let’s empty this glass of wine together. I’ll start getting ready.” He paused, let the moment hang on too long, let his face twist into ugliness. “You’re staying silent.”

He paced to the other end of the circle, tossing down his imaginary glass of wine—Victor had an aether glass, and a real crash, but Yuuri didn’t seem to need one, his audience jumped anyway, upset by his abrupt twist to rage. “ _Oh,_ but I wish I could cut with a sword those throats singing about love. I wish I could seal in the _cold_ the hands that portray those verses of burning passions!”

He pushed his palms to his eyes, turned his head to the sky, mimed weeping for a beat—not too long, he’d learned from watching Victor, this was the key, _not too long,_ or the moment hung over and the audience was uncomfortable. Then he switched to sorrow.

“This story that makes no sense will vanish tonight along with the stars.” He lowered his hands, held them out to the audience, making fleeting eye contact with several people, thrilling inside to see how caught up they were in the story.

_This is so much fun, when they react like this!_

“If I could see you, my love, from our hope eternity would be born. Stay close to me, don’t go. I’m afraid of losing you. Your hands, your legs, my hands, my legs”—he pantomimed touching a lover, holding them in an embrace—“the heartbeats, _our_ heartbeats, my love, are fusing together. We’re one now. Forever.”

He let out a sigh as he sank to the floor, drawing on the last bit of aether, the good aether he’d saved for this moment. “Let’s leave. Together.” He formed the aether into a dagger, held it over his chest and shut his eyes as he tipped his head back. “Now I’m ready.”

He thrust the dagger toward his chest as the audience cried out, “No, no, no!” the same as they did for Victor…and the dagger transformed into butterflies against Yuuri’s chest as he slumped to the side in his final pose, the tragic prince in his final sleep.

For a moment no one moved, or breathed. Then someone sobbed, and clapped, and then the whole alley was clapping and sobbing, and almost before Yuuri could finish rising to his feet to take his bow, they were upon him, mobbing him as if he were Victor himself, weeping and kissing his sleeves and telling him over and over again it was a wonderful performance.

Yuuri barely made it to the ship in time after all, but Chunhua, the old woman’s daughter, unhitched the cart and put him directly on the ox, and they rode it together as if it were a horse all the way to the docks. Before she let him board, however, she bowed to him one last time.

“Thank you so much. My mother loves storytelling and steals Victor’s posters from the city when we come into town. She’s only seen a few moving pictures of him, but today you let her see more of him than she’s likely ever to see. You repaid her far more than some tea and rice, and it was wrong of me to make you late, but I can’t even be sorry. So you have all my gratitude and thanks.”

Yuuri smiled and urged her to stand up again. “No, thank you. I enjoyed that performance a great deal, and I got more than enough out of it myself. I wish you and your mother good fortune, and I hope I may see you again one day.”

“Good luck in your storytelling,” she called to him as he hurried up the ramp, “and say hello to Victor if you see him!”

That remark, of course, made Yuuri sigh to himself. But it didn’t quite make him as sad, not anymore.

The last leg of his journey he largely slept, and as he stood at the rail waiting to land at Hasetsu, he vowed he _would_ find a way to compete on the same stage as Victor again, if he could.

His return home wasn’t as terrible as he’d feared it would be. His first mentor in storytelling, Minako, surprised him by meeting him at the docks, embarrassed him by dragging him all over town to say hello to everyone, but he didn’t mind as much as he pretended. Yes, he was embarrassed, but she was right, it was good to see how much people cared about him and how little they minded about his loss. It was wonderful to see his mother and father and sister, and incredible to eat proper Japanese food again, especially his mother’s katsudon. But his heart had broken to see the memorial to his beloved dog, Vicchan, at the family shrine. He’d known Vicchan had passed a month ago—and this had certainly not helped his Grand Prix performance—but it was something else to be present personally to pay his own respects. Losing Vicchan was another reminder of his lost ties with Victor—when he’d been young, he’d gotten Vicchan because he’d heard Victor too had a poodle, and though Yuuri had ended up getting a different kind, a smaller breed, he _had_ named the dog after his hero. Now hero and best friend both were gone from his life.

Still, it was good to be home. To eat himself sick on his mother’s cooking, to smell the sea air as he made the walk between his family’s resort and the theater, which was owned by Yuko and her husband now. They had three little girls, triplets, and they were plenty busy, but the triplets it turned out were some of Yuuri’s biggest fans, and they were always goading him into doing performances for them.

Months went by, and Yuuri settled into as comfortable a routine as could be had at Hasetsu. He ate a few too many katsudon and gained a little weight. He helped his father and his mother with the resort, and Yuko and Nishigori with the theater. He practiced his own storytelling, and Minako helped him, praising him for his improvements, but Yuuri could feel his stagnation settling around him. He couldn’t see a path ahead of him back to the Grand Prix, to any competitive arena of storytelling. Most importantly, he couldn’t see a way back into Victor’s orbit.

And then one day he spooled the latest moving picture film onto the projector, and everything changed.

Moving picture reels were often a mix of news, entertainment, and bits of variety the packagers found from around the globe, sometimes professionally produced, but with the new hand-held aether-powered movie recorder cameras, more and more often these snippets of film were made by amateurs. Or, more often than not, they were candidly filmed by professionals and sold for a profit, something which happened to Victor all the time. But this time as the film reel spun, it wasn’t Victor’s private moments on display. It was Yuuri’s.

At first he didn’t recognize himself, and when he did, he couldn’t understand where or why or how he’d been recorded. And then he realized what he was doing, and it hit him. This was him in China, in the alley, performing _The Tale of the Sleeping Prince._ Someone must have had a moving picture recorder. They’d stood rather close to him too, but he hadn’t noticed them. He turned red with embarrassment, unaccustomed to seeing himself recorded at all, let alone recorded and projected onto a huge screen.

The entire theater was buzzing now, turning around and looking up at the booth, because of course they knew he was there. Footsteps on the stairs were his only warning before the door burst open and Nishigori and Yuko came in, wide-eyed, out of breath, regarding him as if they’d caught him manning the projector naked.

“What in the world is that?” Nishigori demanded. “Why are you on the film reel?”

“That’s Victor’s storytelling performance, isn’t it?” Yuko was dumbstruck, but she looked pleased too. “Yuuri, it’s amazing! But why didn’t you tell us?”

In the theater, an announcer’s voice boomed over the audience’s shocked murmurs. “ _Footage has surfaced of Japanese Grand Prix finalist Katsuki Yuuri performing a remarkable copy of Five-Time Grand Prix Champion Victor Nikiforov’s_ Tale of a Sleeping Prince _in an alley in Shanghai. The performance was apparently a thank you to an old woman for sharing her tea and rice with him on the journey home, but no explanation has been given as to why Katsuki-san was able to so perfectly mimic Nikiforov’s program on the spot in the first place. Nikiforov himself has been unavailable for comment on the matter.”_

Yuuri pressed his hands to his cheeks, which felt as if they might have literal flames rising from them. “I have to get out of here,” he whispered.

Yuko took his arm. “I’ll take you out the back way. Nishigori, you take over the projector. I’ll tell Mother to mind the girls on the way out.”

She got him out the back door easily enough, but Hasetsu wasn’t a large town, and the gossip mills were already churning as they made their way across the bridge back to the resort. Yuuri could feel everyone’s eyes on him, and he ducked his head.

“It’ll be fine,” Yuko kept telling him, patting him reassuringly on his back. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. You looked amazing! How did you memorize it so perfectly?”

“The steno viewer.” He confessed about the empty car, his obsessive watches, his rehearsal. “I was in a low place. I know it sounds mad, what I did, but it helped me feel bright again.”

“Oh, Yuuri, it doesn’t sound mad at all. It sounds like a very Yuuri thing to do.” They were at the resort now, at the side gate used for deliveries and family, and she hugged him tight, bussing a kiss on his cheek. “Go let your mother feed you, but maybe stay in the kitchen for a bit until the gossip dies down, or until you’re ready to face it.”

Yuuri nodded and waved her goodbye, then turned to open the gate.

His only warning before being knocked down into the ground was a bark, and then great paws hit him in the chest, sending him onto his back, into the snow. It was late March, the height of Hanami, but it had snowed the night before, ruining the cherry blossoms and carpeting the ground with white. It broke Yuuri’s fall, at least, but it also tossed snow onto his glasses, clouding them and distorting his vision. Because for a moment he thought he saw…

“Vicchan?”

He heard his father’s laugh in the doorway. “No, not our Vicchan, but he does look like him, doesn’t he, if he were bigger? This animal belongs to a guest who arrived while you were at the theater. Handsome foreigner.”

Yuuri pushed the dog away, wiping snow from his glasses so he could stare at his father, his heartbeat quickening. “Handsome…foreigner?”

“Yes. I forget his name or where he’s from, but he’s a pleasant fellow. I assume he’s something to do with your storytelling business, because he asked for you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri had climbed to his feet, but now his arms and legs turned to jelly. “Asked…for _me_?”

“Yes, but he said he wasn’t in a rush. When I said you were out, he was happy to wait. He’s in onsen right now.”

Yuuri didn’t think. He didn’t make a conscious decision to move, he simply scrambled forward, knocking over a gardening table, banging into the door, barely kicking out of his shoes and stumbling toward the hot springs still in his coat and hat, gasping and shaking the whole way, his mind frozen on a terrified refrain of _it can’t be him, it can’t be him, it can’t actually be him._

And yet when Yuuri burst open the door to the men’s public baths, out of breath and sweating, his glasses fogged up with steam, over the tops of the fames he could see the proof with his own eyes. There he was, the man himself. Victor Nikiforov, five-time Grand Prix Storytelling Champion, World Cup Storytelling Master, living legend.

As he spied Yuuri, the living legend stood, rising naked out of the water and smiled as he held out a hand. “Hello Yuuri. I’ve come to be your new storytelling coach. I’m going to take you back to the Grand Prix Final. And this time you’re going to win.”

Victor winked.

Yuuri slid down the wall leading to the showers, clutching at the tile, swallowing a whimper and trying, with all his might, not to pass out.

  



	2. The Storytelling God Made Flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Crouched so close to him, Victor’s hair practically brushing his nose, Victor’s nose nearly touching his nose, Yuuri was overwhelmed with Victor’s scent. Yuuri couldn’t stop taking deep breaths of him, as if he were a delicious meal he wasn’t supposed to eat but desperately wanted to. Victor did smell faintly of katsudon, yes. But he also smelled of the laundry soap his mother used for the inn’s robes and hot spring towels. And he smelled of the hot spring itself, faintly sulfurous. Yuuri detected something else too, something he couldn’t name which seemed uniquely Victor. Something sharp and biting, something he wanted to chase._
> 
> _Taste._
> 
> _I wonder how Victor tastes._

Victor Nikiforov was in Hasetsu. He was at Yuutopia, at Yuuri’s family’s resort, wearing nothing more than one of the inn’s robes, sleeping on the floor of the family’s private dining room because he’d said he was sleepy after his bath.

Yuuri couldn’t remember how they’d gotten from the baths to the dining room. He’d remembered Victor talking, telling him about the airship he took to get to Japan and how interesting the flight was, trying to dodge the snowstorm. He talked a lot, Yuuri remembered this much, but mostly Yuuri had been busy trying not to stare and to keep his jaw from hanging slack, his hands from trembling as he handed Victor a robe. Because Victor Nikiforov, the most famous storyteller in the world, the legend whose poster advertisements Yuuri had plastered all over his bedroom since he was eleven, _that man_ had declared to Yuuri that he had come all the way to Japan to be Yuuri’s coach. 

And he’d made this declaration completely naked.

Victor was dressed now, sort of. He wore the green robe Yuutopia gave all their guests when they left the baths and came to sit in the dining area. But Yuuri had been in a trance of stupidity, and instead of leading his guest there, he’d led him—and his dog, who he introduced as Makkachin—into the family area, and so when Victor had declared himself sleepy, what else could Yuuri to but bring him a sleeping mat and a pillow? If Victor had thought this strange, he didn’t mention it, only gave Yuuri a wink that made his heart do a flip before curling up with Makkachin and napping.

Yuuri couldn’t help noticing Victor was beautiful when he slept. He was beautiful, period—Yuuri had thought so when he’d seen Victor on the tour, that experiencing the man in person was nothing compared to a recording or a poster, but _this close_ , the man was like an angel. His skin was so pale it was almost iridescent. Between his hair and his skin, he had no color to him at all, save his bright green-blue eyes, and yet somehow this only served to make him glow. His features were delicate too, and angular, his eyelashes long, his lips thin but rounded in a way that kept drawing Yuuri’s attention to them when the man spoke. When Victor smiled—which had happened often in the short time between when Yuuri arrived and Victor had fallen asleep—Yuuri would swear Victor’s mouth went into a heart shape.

Yuuri’s own heart beat a little faster as he watched the Russian man turn on his cushion, the inn robe falling open to reveal a smooth expanse of chest and stir more strange sensations in Yuuri.

_What am I going to do with him? What does he mean, he’s going to be my coach?_

A commotion in the hallway made Yuri turn in time to see Minako entering the room. She was out of breath and still wearing her coat, snow dusting her hair and shoulders.

She stared at Victor in disbelief. “So it’s true. He’s really here, to be your coach?”

“I suppose so.” Yuuri poured her tea as she shed her coat and sat beside him, but his gaze kept stealing to Victor’s sleeping form. “I don’t know why, though.”

“It’s all over the news. Apparently he saw the same news reel we did, of you doing his performance.” When Yuuri winced, she held up her hand. “ _No._ You won’t hide from this, try to make this about shame. Don’t you understand? _He came here for you._ He walked straight to Yakov, _his mentor,_ and told him he was taking a leave of absence from the troupe to coach you for the next season. He says you’ve inspired him.”

Yuuri put a hand to his chest and stared, breathless, at Victor. _He_ , Yuuri, had inspired _Victor Nikiforov_? How in the world could that be possible?

Whether he’d heard them speaking or had simply finished his nap, Victor stirred in his sleep again and rose, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. The robe slid from his shoulder, baring it and half his back as he glanced over it and gave Yuuri a look that scrambled his brain.

“I’m _so hungry._ ”

Yuuri nearly knocked over the table in his effort to rise. Never mind that he’d eaten a bowl of miso soup when he came out of the bath—if Victor was hungry, he was hungry, and Yuuri would feed him, his hero, this living legend, this god made flesh who _wanted to be his coach._ “Let me fetch my mother—she’ll make you anything you want to eat, right away.”

Victor turned to face Yuuri, sloughing off his sleepiness with amazing speed. “Tell me, Yuuri, what are _your_ favorite foods? This would be a good way for me to get to know you, to eat what you like to eat.”

“What is he saying, Minako-senpai?” Yuuri’s mother said this as she came into the room, smiling and wiping her hands on her apron. “I do wish my English was better. I think he asked about food? Is he hungry? Should I bring him a menu? But oh, they’re only in Japanese.”

Victor climbed to his feet, holding his robe closed as he executed a gallant western-style bow. “You must be Yuuri’s mother,” he said in rather passable Japanese. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Victor Nikiforov, five-time world champion storyteller.”

Hiroko beamed and clapped her hands together in front of her chin. “Oh, yes, I know who you are, of course. But your Japanese is so good! I would never have expected this.”

“No, no, I’m not very good.” Victor held up his hands to Hiroko, but his sparkling gaze slid to Yuuri. “I’ve come to Japan because your son has inspired me. I would like very much to be his coach for the coming Grand Prix storytelling season, if he’ll have me.”

Yuuri blushed from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toenails, but he kept his chin high and his voice level. “Of course I would be honored to have such an accomplished storyteller as my coach. But I will be honest, I don’t know how I could ever afford the fees someone of your level deserves to be paid.”

Victor waved this thought away. “You can pay me later when you win the Grand Prix Final. But to answer your earlier question,” he said, turning back to Yuuri’s mother, “I wanted to know Yuuri’s favorite food, so I could try it for myself.”

“Oh, Yuuri’s favorite food is katsudon.” Hiroko beamed. “Pork cutlet bowl, our house specialty. I’ll make you an extra-large serving.”

Minako poked at Yuuri’s midsection. “Katsudon is Yuuri’s favorite dish, and his ultimate weakness. He gains weight easily, and with as much as he’s had it lately, I doubt he’ll fit into any of his storytelling costumes.”

Yuuri went rigid with shame, casting Minako-sensei a look half censure, half plea, but then Victor spoke, a terrible smile on his face as he wiped away a stray hair. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll work him hard enough that this won’t be a problem.” Then his gaze focused on Yuuri, his blue eyes sharpening. “And if it is a problem, I won’t be able to coach him.”

Yuuri sat up straight, sucking in his stomach and throwing his shoulders back. “It won’t be a problem, I promise!”

Victor’s face eased back into a smile. “There, you see?”

Yuuri wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, except that everyone was teaming up against him in collusion with his lifelong hero who, against reason and sense, was sitting in his dining room in a bathrobe. He wasn’t sure what to do with that sharp look from Victor, either. Was the man truly hinting he’d sail all the way to Japan, abandoning his own training for Yuuri’s…only to storm off again if Yuuri’s middle got a little too thick?

When Yuuri’s mother brought out Victor’s katsudon, however, Victor’s casually terrifying smile transformed yet again, this time into pure, innocent joy that tugged at Yuuri’s heart. Yuuri propped his hand on his chin, unable to stop his own grin as Victor gasped and babbled incoherently in Russian, though occasionally he would manage to blurt out an occasional, “This is wonderful!” in Japanese, and he won Yuuri’s mother forever with his question, “Is this is what the gods eat?”

Hiroko patted his head as she headed for the kitchen. “I’ll make you as many katsudon as you like, as long as you stay in Hasetsu, Vicchan.”

“I’ll never leave, then,” he told her, and Yuuri couldn’t tell if he was joking or if he was serious. The more time he spent with Victor, in fact, the less he understood him.

Yuuri, terrified of making his costumes more snug than they already were, didn’t eat any katsudon himself, only enjoyed watching Victor enjoy his own, which is what he was doing when his sister Mari came into the dining room. “Yuuri, what are all the trunks in the hallway? A delivery company put them there, and they keep bringing more.”

Victor put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Oh, those are mine. Thank you. If you could put them in the room where I’ll be staying, that would be wonderful.”

Mari looked at Yuuri. He cut a glance at Minako, who simply stared back at him with an expression that made it clear she wasn’t bailing him out of anything.

In the end Hiroko fed Victor a second helping of katsudon while Mari, Yuuri, and their father hustled to clean out a place for Victor to stay and loaded his belongings into it.

“It’s not much,” Yuuri apologized as he led Victor to it after he finished eating. “It’s an old banquet room, down the hall from the family living quarters. But it’s all we have available.”

“Banquet room, hmm?” The two of them were alone, except for Makkachin, who made himself at home on a cushion and immediately fell asleep. Victor closed the bamboo doors, then glanced over his shoulder, winking at Yuuri. “Should I be nervous?”

Yuuri frowned at him, puzzled.

Victor laughed and crossed the room to stand before him, taking his hands in his own and drawing Yuuri into a crouch with him on the woven mat. “I’m so eager to get to know you better, Yuuri. Everything about you.” He smiled, and Yuuri’s heart rate kicked up as Victor ran his fingertips down Yuuri’s arms, catching at his elbows, teasing the edges of his cuffs. “What you like. What you dislike. Tell me who you are, Yuuri. Show me.”

_Smell_.

Crouched so close to him, Victor’s hair practically brushing his nose, Victor’s _nose_ nearly touching his nose, Yuuri was overwhelmed with Victor’s scent. Yuuri couldn’t stop taking deep breaths of him, as if he were a delicious meal he wasn’t supposed to eat but desperately wanted to. Victor did smell faintly of katsudon, yes. But he also smelled of the laundry soap his mother used for the inn’s robes and hot spring towels. And he smelled of the hot spring itself, faintly sulfurous. Yuuri detected something else too, something he couldn’t name which seemed uniquely Victor. Something sharp and biting, something he wanted to chase.

_Taste._

_I wonder how Victor tastes._

Victor’s blue eyes sharpened, seemed to fill with more color. His right hand drifted down Yuuri’s cheek, thumb catching on his lower lip.

Yuuri’s breath caught. He blinked slowly, staring at Victor’s own mouth as Victor’s thumb teased at his lip, stroking the flesh. The gesture sent pulses of electricity through his body all the way to his toes. Victor’s other hand slid up his arm, anchoring a grip on his biceps as he leaned into Yuuri, thumb sliding away as his mouth aimed for his lips instead.

“ _Yuuri._ ” 

When Victor called his name, Yuuri woke from his trance. As Victor’s lips closed in to brush his, he exploded out of his hero’s arms, launching himself so hard he went through the doorway and out into the hall. He pressed himself to the wall, red-faced and gasping. He wasn’t even panicking. His brain had stopped functioning, full-stop.

Victor hovered where Yuuri had left him, looking stunned and slightly hurt. “What’s wrong?”

Yuuri scrambled to put his brain back online, but it was nothing but a bucket of broken gears and switches. “I…I…can’t…”

_I can’t be close to you. You’re like a god to me._

His brain, broken and unhelpful, replayed the way Victor had looked at him with hooded eyes as he had touched him. Nearly…kissed him. Yuuri’s psyche melted into something white and hot, and for a moment he couldn’t see anything.

When he got his vision back, Victor stood in front of him, smiling as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, holding out his hand to help Yuuri to his feet.

“Come, Yuuri. You can help me unpack the rest of my things.”

Yuuri did. It took some time, because Victor had brought, it seemed, the entire contents of his house. Books and knickknacks and dishes and clothes—everything but furniture, though there was a little of that too. Half-used bottles of aether, the most expensive brands there were to be had, in custom-made vials Yuuri didn’t know one could have made. Victor seemed to take them for granted, tossing them onto the futon as if they were nothing, not the miracles most storytellers would give their eyeteeth for.

Victor brought all manner of storytelling gear with him, including his scripts, his props, and his costumes.

Yuuri’s hands trembled as sat on a box, a leather notebook in one hand as he ran the fingers of his other over the fabric of the outfits he knew so well. “I can’t believe I’m seeing these in person.”

“Go ahead and pull the costumes out.” Victor put a hand on the small of Yuuri’s back as he leaned over him to peer into the trunk. “If you see any you like, you’re welcome to try them on. Perhaps we can use them in your repertoire.”

The very idea sent a shudder through Yuuri. “I couldn’t use your costumes. That wouldn’t be right.” He lifted out a blue, iridescent costume from Victor’s early days as an independent storyteller and sighed. “Oh, I remember this one.”

“Hmm, yes. I believe I wore a flower crown also for that performance.” Keeping his hand on Yuuri’s back, Victor reached around him to dig withdraw another outfit. “This one, however, I thought would look particularly striking on you, with your coloring.”

Yuuri’s stomach rose and fell, twisting with nervous excitement. _This was the costume._ He couldn’t touch it. He could barely look at it. How was it here before him, now? It was so different in real life, faintly shimmering and flowing, the collar high, the fabric black but sometimes sheer, dotted with silver diamond accents that crossed the body of the chest like a sash. Victor had worn the costume to play both a prince and a princess—he’d had long hair at the time, and he’d been hailed by some for his androgynous performance and labeled a scandal by it from others.

For Yuuri this costume, that performance, that image of Victor, had been his awakening, in so many ways. Now here it was, the relic of that moment, before him.

_And Victor wanted him to wear it._

Victor’s arms closed tighter around him, his mouth close to his ear as he drew the costume close enough for Yuuri to smell the mothballs. “Take it, Yuuri. I can tell how much you want it.” 

“I can’t,” Yuuri whispered. But his hands opened and closed, trying to reach for it of their own accord.

“But you can. See? I’m giving it to you.”

Victor pressed the fabric into Yuuri’s hands.

Yuuri gasped, shuddering, his mind exploding with memories as the costume passed over his skin. “ _Victor._ ”

Victor shifted the costume again, nuzzling the line of his jaw at the same time, hypnotizing him. “ _Yuuri._ ”

This time when Victor said his name, it didn’t free him. Quite the opposite. This time Yuuri melted into the man who was, for all practical purposes, holding him. Nuzzling his cheek. Stroking him with silky fabric charged with dark powers.

_How is this happening?_ Yuuri thought, desperately, fleetingly, but then Victor’s hand slid to his waist, his nuzzling cheek trailed down his jaw, and Yuuri clutched the costume, the silver diamonds cutting into his hand as he turned his mouth to meet Victor’s.

“Yuuri!”

Mari’s voice _did_ break the spell, and Yuuri shot out of Victor’s arms as if he had been loaded on a spring. When his sister entered the banquet room, Yuuri was pressed to the back wall, hands pressed flat to the paper, Victor, his scripts, and his costume abandoned on the floor.

“What is it?” Yuuri asked, breathless, his voice cracking.

Mari pointed to the stairs. “There’s another Russian guest here to see you. Well, he’s here to see Victor, I think.”

Yuuri blinked at her. “What?” 

Victor sat up and frowned at her too. “Is it Yakov?”

“No, it isn’t your coach. But I think he’s another storyteller. He’s very young.” She scratched her head. “It’s going to be confusing, if he stays, because his name is Yuuri too.”

Yuuri stood up straighter. “Yuri…Yuri _Pliestesky?_ ” 

“Yes, I think that’s what he said his name was. He’s insisting he see Victor right away, and he’s not taking no for an answer.” She pursed her lips and gave Victor a disapproving look. “It seems _he_ thinks you already promised to be _his_ coach. He’s come to take you back to Russia.”


	3. The Tale of Two Apprentices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yuuri wished he knew what the man were searching for, so he could show it to him._
> 
> _"Tell me what you want, Yuuri,” Victor said at last._
> 
> _Yuuri’s mouth went dry. To kiss you. To touch your face. To feel you close into me, closing out the world. Except he shouldn’t want that. And that wasn’t what Victor meant. He meant about coaching._
> 
> _Yuuri swallowed, putting enough saliva back in his mouth that he might speak. “I…I want to be your apprentice. I want you to be my storytelling coach…please. If you would be so kind.”_
> 
> _One of Victor’s hands slid off the wall and into Yuuri’s hair, sending goosebumps along his skin. “Say that again. Say, ‘be my coach, Victor.’”_
> 
> _“Be—ah—” Yuuri shut his eyes as the hand in his air slid to his nape, kneading his hairline, teasing behind his ear, sliding to his jaw. “Be…be my coach, Victor.”_

Yuuri was certain he couldn’t have heard his sister properly. Because he would have sworn she said the fifteen-year-old junior storytelling champion had arrived at the inn and was demanding Victor return to Russia to be his coach. Which was ridiculous.

Except Victor seemed to have heard the same thing. He rose and faced Mari, frowning. “Yuri is here? But without Yakov?”

Mari nodded. She worried her hands together, looking as if she wanted to sneak out back to have a cigarette. “He seems to have traveled alone, which is dangerous for such a young man. He’s so beautiful. He reminds me of the blond member of a vaudeville singing troupe from the film reels.”

Yuuri couldn’t believe this. A few hours ago he’d gone to help Yuko with the afternoon show, and now his performance in the Shanghai alley was in the reels, and Victor Nikiforov _and_ Yuri Plisetsky were at his family’s inn?

_Don’t forget that Victor just tried to kiss you. And that you nearly let him._

Victor regarded Mari for a moment, then turned to Yuuri, pressing a single finger to his lips and studying him. Eventually, he turned back to Mari, nodding. “Tell Yuri I’ll be down to speak with him directly.” 

Yuuri watched his sister leave, wondering if he should follow her. But when he glanced back to Victor, he found his hero was watching him once again, looking thoughtful. Slightly expectant, possibly, but what he wanted Yuuri couldn’t begin to guess. 

He blushed under the weight of the Russian storyteller’s gaze, and eventually he looked away. “We shouldn’t keep your troupe member waiting.”

Victor appeared taken aback. Then Victor smiled, the gesture wiping away all traces of his previous emotions. “You’re right. Let’s go see what Yuri came all this way for.”

It seemed an odd thing to say, Yuuri thought, since Mari had already told them why Yuri had come: to take Victor back. Indeed, when they approached Yuri in the common sitting area, he rose at once and stormed angrily up to Victor, aiming a finger at his chest and came directly to the point, his shiny blond hair flying about his face as he made his declaration.

“Victor Nikiforov, who the hell do you think you are, running off to Japan without telling anyone?”

Victor looked amused as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his robe. “I think I’m Victor Nikiforov.”

Yuri was unmoved by this. “You promised me if I won my division at the Grand Prix Final, you would write my scripts and help Yakov oversee my senior division debut. I held up my end of that bargain, but then you ran off in the middle of the night so you could make this Japanese fool your apprentice instead of me. Which I should have seen coming. You’re always so damn fickle, but you’re still the greatest storyteller that ever lived, and I want you to be my mentor. I’m sick of your wild hairs. Get back to Russia where you belong and keep your promises!”

Yuuri drew in a sharp breath on a silent gasp, gaze darting between Yuri and Victor, wondering what Victor would say. _Fearing_ what he would say. Because Victor didn’t look amused any longer he looked…slightly troubled. Thoughtful. As if he were pondering something deeply.

Was he thinking of going back to Russia? Had he gotten a good enough look at Yuuri and changed his mind?

_You should have let him kiss you._

As if Victor could read his thoughts, the Russian’s gaze cut to Yuuri’s, and they regarded each other silently. Yuuri tried to keep his pride, tried not to beg, but… _he wanted Victor to stay so badly._ For more than the kisses.

But he wanted that too. Even though those terrified him most of all.

“I require a moment to speak to Yuuri,” Victor declared at last. “Mari, would you please show Yuri to his room?”

Everyone stared blankly at Victor. “Which one of them do you want me to take?” Mari shook her head. “This is too confusing, this many Yuris.” She pointed to Yuri Plisetsky. “We’ll call you Yurio.”

“ _What_?” Yuri demanded, but Victor only laughed.

“Perfect. Mari, take Yurio to his room, please.” 

Yuri aimed an angry finger at Victor. “I’m not going anywhere except back on the boat, with you!”

Victor raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m traveling by boat? No. And no transportation of any kind will leave the city at this hour. You’re staying the night at the very least. I hope you brought enough money for that.” When Yuri’s cheeks colored, Victor waved this aside. “No matter. I’ll cover your bills. But that does mean you’ll need to do as I say. Starting with leaving now with Mari so I may speak to Yuuri alone.”

Yuri left, grumbling, with Mari, and then Victor and Yuuri were alone. But Victor caught Yuuri’s hand and drew him out of the common room as well, leading them around the corner into an alcove. There he pressed Yuuri gently against the wall and stood before him, trapping him between his outstretched arms, Victor’s hands pressed flat to the wall on either side of his head. Yuuri shuddered as Victor stared into him, as if the man were trying to read his soul. 

Yuuri wished he knew what the man were searching for, so he could show it to him.

“Tell me what you want, Yuuri,” Victor said at last.

Yuuri’s mouth went dry. _To kiss you. To touch your face. To feel you close into me, closing out the world._ Except he shouldn’t want that. And that wasn’t what Victor meant. He meant about coaching. 

Yuuri swallowed, putting enough saliva back in his mouth that he might speak. “I…I want to be your apprentice. I want you to be my storytelling coach…please. If you would be so kind.”

One of Victor’s hands slid off the wall and into Yuuri’s hair, sending goosebumps along his skin. “Say that again. Say, ‘be my coach, Victor.’”

“Be— _ah—”_ Yuuri shut his eyes as the hand in his air slid to his nape, kneading his hairline, teasing behind his ear, sliding to his jaw. “Be…be my coach, Victor.”

Victor all but growled, crowding his body closer so that he still wasn’t touching Yuuri, but the contact was near enough that if Yuuri took a deep breath his chest would hit Victor. He shuddered, fighting the urge to turn into Victor’s hand.

Victor kept stroking his jaw. “I did promise Yuri—Yurio—I would help him. I forgot my promise to him. Because of this, unfortunately, I have to give him a chance. But I want you to remember this, Yuuri.”

 _Remember what?_ Yuuri thought, and lifted his head, opening his eyes and his mouth to ask.

The words never left him, because before they had a chance, Victor’s mouth closed over his. 

It wasn’t a long kiss—a pressing of lips, a gentle dance of tongue before he withdrew, stroking Yuuri’s cheek on the way past. But it rocked Yuuri as if it had been an earthquake, and he stared at Victor, blindsided.

Victor looked abashed. “You don’t like my kisses, Yuuri?”

 _It was my first. It was my first kiss, from the man I’ve idolized and fantasized over my entire life. I’m having difficulty breathing._ Yuuri swallowed and forced his jaw to work. “I…I l-like them,” he whispered. _Too much._

Victor’s blue eyes darkened. He stroked Yuuri’s chin. “Would you mind if I stole another, then?”

Yuuri nodded, woodenly. Then shook his head, quickly, realizing he’d accidentally said he minded if Victor kissed him. Whimpering, he licked his lips, trying to figure out how to recover.

Victor rubbed a thumb across Yuuri’s bottom lip, his blue eyes dark as they trailed the gesture. “Yuuri, you will undo me.” He traced a line down Yuuri’s neck. “Ask me to kiss you.”

Yuuri couldn’t do that. He could barely breathe. He shut his eyes on a slow blink, parted his lips. How was this happening? How was Victor here, holding him like this, asking him such questions? How was he supposed to… “ _Victor._ ”

“That will do.”

This time when Victor kissed him, the swipe of his tongue lingered, tangling more insistently with Yuuri’s. Victor stroked Yuuri’s jaw, quietly demanding, and when Yuuri opened wider, Victor kissed him deeper, swallowing Yuuri’s moan and pressing him more firmly against the wall.

“Come to my room tonight,” Victor whispered into Yuuri’s ear when he came up for air.

Yuuri shivered and shook his head. “No.”

“Then I’ll come to yours.”

The image of Victor standing in the middle of Yuuri’s room, flanked by the posters of his own image sent icy terror through Yuuri. “ _No._ ” 

“You won’t meet me?” Victor seemed hurt. “Why not?”

Yuuri scrambled to find an excuse he could offer—not a lie, but a truth that still protected his heart. “If you’re to be my coach, I must respect your position. I’m sorry.”

Victor sighed. He pressed his forehead against Yuuri’s and laced their fingers together, but made no attempt to kiss him again. “You’re too honorable, Yuuri. But I will respect your wishes. For now.” He brushed a chaste kiss against Yuuri’s cheek, then pulled away, letting go of Yuuri. “Come. We must find somewhere in the inn we might have storytelling rehearsal and a small competition.”

Yuuri’s heart sank at the loss of Victor’s touch, but he told his heart to stop being foolish and be happy for what it had. “I know just where to go for both those things, but it’s not at the inn.”

Victor raised his eyebrows, looking interested. “Oh? Please show me.”

For a moment, Yuri almost reached for Victor’s hand. Checking the gesture, he bowed instead, and indicated the door. “Let’s get you dressed, and I’ll take you to the Castle Theater.” 

* * *

 

To say Yuko and Nishigori were shocked to find Yuuri on their doorstep late in the evening flanked by not one but _two_ internationally famous Russian storytellers (and a large poodle) on the same day Yuuri had caused a scandal by showing up on one of their film reels would be an understatement.

Yuko in particular looked ready to faint. Unlike Yuuri, she’d outgrown her crush on Victor long ago, but it was still something else to see him standing there, _right there on her doorstep—_ oh, Yuuri knew exactly what his friend was thinking. He did his best to rescue her, despite the fact that he himself was still reeling from the memory of being held agains the wall, Victor’s mouth moving over his own—

Yuuri cleared his throat, stopping that train of thought.

The Nishigori triplets—Epic, Romp, and Mellodrama (Mellie for short)—pushed past their frozen parents and gazed up in eerie unison at the legendary storytellers. 

“You’re Victor Nikiforov,” Epic said.

“And you’re Yuri Plisetsky,” Romp said.

“You’re a five-time Grand Prix champion,” Mellie said.

“And you won the junior division.” Epic pointed to Yuri.

The triplet’s eyes glazed as they went into full fanatic mode. 

“We follow all your film reels.”

“We know all your routines.”

“We have all your posters in the theater.”

Mellie pointed at Yuri. “Except most of the ones of Victor have gone—”

Yuuri leapt forward and clamped a hand on Mellie’s mouth. “Yuko-chan, Nishigori-san, this is Victor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky. Victor-sensei, this is Yuko Nishigori and Takeshi Nishigori and their daughters, Epic, Romp, and Mellodrama.”

Victor bowed, then shook first Yuko’s and then Nishigori’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you both.”

Yuri simply glared.

Yuko beamed, breathless. “The pleasure is all ours.” Nishigori, still looking stunned, nodded beside her.

Yuuri gestured to the theater beside the small Nishigori house. “Victor-sensei wanted to know if we could use your theater. He wants to have some kind of…demonstration. Apologies for asking and causing you trouble.”

Yuko’s cheeks stained with a blush and she looked as if she might faint. “ _Demonstration?_ No—no trouble at all! Takeshi—hurry, run and get the key.”

Though Yuko tried, several times, to get the girls to return to bed, in the end the entire family, even Yuko’s mother came over to the theater, Yuko and Nishigori manning the lights and curtains as Yuuri, Yuri, the triplets and Yuko’s mother sat in the audience and waited to see what Victor had in store for them. Makkachin sat at Yuuri’s feet, resting his head over Yuuri’s shoes.

Victor didn’t do anything right away, pacing the circumference of the stage as Yuko and Nishigori raised the movie screen and adjusted the sets. He wore a handsome suit now, one he’d pulled from his costume trunk, but it wasn’t one Yuuri recognized. The thought thrilled Yuuri—he knew _all_ of Victor’s costumes. 

The idea of seeing something _new_ from Victor…

Victor pressed his index finger to his lips as he studied Yuuri and Yuri for several long moments, then lowered his hand and addressed his entire audience using his stage voice.

“As you’ve heard by now, I’m sure, I came to Japan to offer my first apprenticeship to Yuri Katsuki. But it seems I have accidentally promised my apprenticeship to two men this season, as Yuri Plisetsky has followed me here to remind me I once casually offered it to him as well. And so I have decided I will hold a contest to see who is better suited to be my apprentice. I will prepare two programs, one for each Yuri, and they will present them in one week’s time—here on this stage, if that can be arranged. The winner will be my apprentice, and I will either remain here in Japan or return to Russia.”

“ _What_?” Yuuri and Yuri demanded at the same time.

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” Yuko popped her head out from behind a curtain, smiling. “You’re more than welcome to use the theater, anytime you like.”

The triplets had gone into a huddle as soon as Victor made his announcement about the contest, but now they broke and chattered in their rapid-fire group-speak, taking turns so quickly Yuuri wasn’t sure who spoke when.

“We need to advertise!”

“Get an audience!’

“This could bring in real money, draw people from outside Hasetsu!”

“We need to tell Minako. She’s great at this kind of thing.”

“Posters, we need to design posters!”

Yuuri was ready to apologize for the sisters and attempt to shut them down, but before he could, Victor crouched down and met them as they crowded the stage, his eyes huge and limpid as he gazed at them adoringly. “That sounds _wonderful_. I love that sort of thing. Please, do what you like to promote the event. Perhaps it could even have a name?”

Epic patted him on the arm. “Leave it to us, Victor-san.”

“Wonderful.” Victor rose, smile lingering until he resumed his place in the center of the stage.

Yuuri had become distracted by the triplets, but Yuri had not. He climbed over the row of seats in front of him and approached Victor, aiming an angry finger at him. “What do you mean, we’re having a contest?”

Victor smiled patiently at him. “You and Yuuri will compete against each other, and the winner will become my apprentice. I’ll prepare a short program for you both, you’ll practice it and perform it, and that will be that.”

Yuuri carefully dislodged himself from Makkachin, hurrying down the aisle and around the seats to stand beside Yuri. “We’ll perform the same program?” His heart was in his shoes. This contest was already lost. He stood no chance against the junior division champion. 

Victor shook his head. “No, I’ll make you each your own, though they’ll be related to each other. They’re two programs I’d been debating using for myself in the coming season, both from the same author’s set of poems.” He winked at Yuuri. “I’ll demonstrate a sampling of them both for you now, if everyone would be so kind as to return to their seats.”

Yuri didn’t climb over the rows this time, but he grumbled to himself as he followed Yuuri back to their places behind the triplets. “This is stupid. This whole thing is _stupid._ ” His grumbling switched over to Russian, then, and Yuuri didn’t know what he said, and he suspected he was glad he didn’t.

“Lights, please, set four and seven, if you don’t mind,” Victor called out, and Yuuri’s shiver returned.

Victor was about to perform live.

_For him._

“This first piece is called _Eros._ It’s exact author is unknown, except that they are Italian and that they also composed the companion piece that goes with this work, along with several other pieces on the nature of love.” Victor nodded at his audience. Bowed his head.

Yuuri saw Victor swipe the tiny aether dispenser from his sleeve only because he was looking for it, because he knew Victor would open with a flourish and Yuuri wanted to know how he would pull it off with so few props and short notice. And yet, even knowing it was coming, even catching the movement that brought it on, Yuuri was blown away.

It shouldn’t have surprised him that Victor would have a burst of music in his aether, because Victor often did, yet Yuuri hadn’t expected Victor to use something so dear on a simple demonstration, so yes, it caught him quite off guard. As did the carmine flare trailing from Victor’s long, slender fingers as the Spanish guitar trailed away and the aether glitter settled onto his storyteller suit, making him look as if he had been rained on by a falling star.

Victor tossed his head back, making his grey hair flip, and winked at Yuuri.

From the side of the theater, Yuuri heard Yuko gasp, followed quickly by Nishigori asking her in hushed Japanese if she was all right, Yuko assuring him in distracted reply that she was fine, and to hush.

Victor began his story as the music faded away, though as always was the magic with Victor’s programs, it somehow managed to linger in Yuuri’s mind all the same.

“Why, hello, my love.” Victor ran his hand over the air before him—the music sparked again, along with more carmine smoke, drifting in the hazy shape of a human face, briefly, before fading away as Victor blew it a kiss and turned playfully away, reaching for another face which had formed on his other side. “And _you_ , my love.” Faced formed all around him, and he turned in a semicircle, running his elegant fingers along their chins, clucking his tongue. “ _Oh,_ so many of you trying to tempt me, but alas, there is only the one I’m interested in. The one who doesn’t want me. The one I mean to have, at any cost.”

Yuuri hadn’t realized the stage had gone dark and stained with red until it abruptly wasn’t, until Victor sucked the aether back into its chamber and Yuuri sat there, gripping the seat ahead of him, jaw hanging open, mouth dry and belly a tangle of dangerous emotion. If the next phase of Victor’s program had been to call Yuuri to the stage and demand he strip naked and lie on a table…

Well, Yuuri would hope he wouldn’t have gone that far, but he wouldn’t have woken from his trance until he was halfway up the stairs, that he had to admit.

“That was _Eros_.” Victor brushed some of the aether dust off his lapel and smiled at them. “The story of a playboy who comes to town and does no small amount of damage before he leaves.”

“I want that one,” Yuri called out, and cast Yuuri a childish glare. He all but had his tongue sticking out.

Yuuri said nothing, only stroked Makkachin’s head. That was fine by him. He’d never be able to pull off _Eros_ in a million years.

Victor ignored Yuri and resumed his place in the center of the stage once more. “Here is the piece I prepared based on the artist’s companion work. This piece is titled _Agape._ Unlike _Eros_ , which is a narrative performance, this is a recited work.”

“Then I _really_ don’t want this one,” Yuri called out, and Yuuri thought, _good, because I much prefer reciting over acting._

Victor pressed his closed fist to his chest, shut his eyes, and drew a slow breath.

This time Yuuri expected music, but he was surprised again, because it was a soft, single note, as if a woman were singing somewhere above his head. _His illusions are always so good_ , Yuuri lamented. 

Then Victor opened his eyes, and Yuuri gave over to the performance once again.

To Yuuri’s shock, though, the poem wasn’t in English, as was standard for storytelling. It was in Latin.

_"Sic mea vita est temporaria,_

_cupit ardenter caritatem aeternam._

_Credam, dabo, sperabo,_

_Honorabo, laborabo, gratias agam!"_

This time the pops of aether were blue, bright and clear, and the swells of music grew to chords, punctuating the lyrical, almost ballet-like movements Victor made across the stage. Yuuri was as unsettled by this performance as he had been by _Eros,_ though in an entirely different way. The first one had hypnotyized him sexually, but this one had called to the part of him in love with Victor as a performer, the part that far preferred to worship than devour.

Victor had done his performances in languages other than English before—when Yuuri was sixteen, Victor’s short program had been _The Scattering Years of My Life_ in the original Japanese, while wearing a silk kimono the color of cherry blossoms, his aether giving the illusion that snow-white flower petals rained down not only on him but on the entire audience while white silk flowers bloomed magically across the kimono itself. Most storytellers couldn’t manage foreign language performances, even when the language was native to themselves—the trick was always relaying the story to the judges and the audience, and precedent had long been set that this would be done in English and English only. But every so often someone like Victor would remind the storytelling world that words were not everything, that they were only one small part of the tale. 

Yuuri wasn’t exactly certain what _Agape_ was about—love, the title suggested, but Victor’s body language, tone of voice, the fragile way he held the room made Yuuri feel…young. Hopeful. Reverent. As if an angel had descended to the stage, whispering  ethereal promises, and Yuuri didn’t dare breathe, lest he miss a word.

Then, just as with _Eros_ , the words abruptly stopped, and he broke from his dizzy trance along with the rest of the room. Yuuri swallowed and straightened in his seat, trying to marshal himself. Very well, if Yuri had called for the first piece, this one was his. He could do this, he decided. He _was_ good with recitation, and he did well with movement and memorization. Really, this shouldn’t be terribly difficult—

“And now for the assignments.” Victor’s booming voice interrupted Yuuri’s musing. “Yurio, you will do _Agape_ , and Yuuri, you will do _Eros_. We’ll begin training tomorrow morning.”

Both Yuuri and Yuri shot to their feet, waving their hands and shouting in Japanese and Russian, respectively.

Victor adjusted his cuffs, detaching the aether clips cooly with a wry smile as he descended the stairs to stand before the rows of seats, speaking over their garbled objections. “You both wish to be my apprentice? This is my first lesson as your potential mentor. You must surprise your audience, and if you were to perform the program you wanted to choose from the two pieces, you would disappoint both them and me. You should be terrified when you first approach a new challenge. You should be entirely unsure of how you will manage it. You should lie awake at night without the answer and sweat in fear trying to hunt it down. You should push yourself to your very limit. Which is what you will do in this next week. Which one of you will push harder, farther? This is what remains to be seen. The one who does so is the one who will claim my apprenticeship.”

 Yuri snarled something in Russian under his breath, then slammed the row of seats ahead of him with the heel of his hand. “Fine. I’ll perform _Agape_. But I won’t be afraid of it. I’ll simply be the best.”

Victor turned away from him, blue eyes sparkling. “And you, Yuuri? What will you do?”

 _I’ll be lucky if I make it to my room before I burst out crying, I’m so afraid._ But he would never let Yuri or the others see him cry, or Victor.  He kept his chin high, his voice level as he replied politely, formally. “I will accept your challenge, Victor-sensei, and do my best.”

If his answer disappointed Victor, Victor gave no sign. He only nodded and clapped his hands once. “Very well, we have established our terms.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, but this will be _fun,_ don’t you think?”

The triplets cheered, and Yuko and her mother gushed over Victor, assuring him that yes, they thought this was the most wonderful idea anyone had ever had in Hasetsu for a long, long time.

Yuuri slipped quietly out of the theater while they were distracted, Makkachin following at his heels as he hurried back to the inn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things.
> 
> Caveats: I'm sliding into anachronisms here, and I've decided to let them slide because I can't work out how some of the speech would work otherwise and, let's be honest, we're here to play around anyway. Apologies if that throws you out. Also, I think it's suspect how well everyone in Hasetsu knows English (except for Mama Katsuki) but honestly it's way too damn hard to do it any other way so we're rolling with that too. Apologies again for that, but dude, the anime? Victor came knowing fantastic Japanese, or everybody, EVERYBODY knew English and spoke it exclusively.
> 
> Extras: So, there was music in this section. I don't know how well links work in this, but here's the playlist I listen to while I type. I keep changing what song is what, but here's the sound in my head, FWIW.
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/12123422997/playlist/3JmhE0Akj31MfTql3Flpn6


	4. Move Like a Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’ll find it.”_
> 
> _Despair, rage fired in Yuuri. “When? I’m out of time—” He cut himself off, pressed his hand to his mouth and turned away, facing the garden wall, looking out at the moon._
> 
> _He felt as much as heard Victor come up behind him. “There’s something I forgot to tell you earlier.”_
> 
> _Yuuri shut his eyes, feeling heavy and weary. “What’s that?”_
> 
> _A cool hand rested on his hip, warm, soft lips brushing his ear._
> 
> _“I love pork cutlet bowls.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had a YOI marathon yesterday, my WIP for publication is going well, I had a fit of inspiration, and the end result was I could finally finish this chapter. Here's hoping I can get to the next part soon. I'm nearing the end of my deadline, so it's possible.

Yuuri took a tray of rice, soup, and tea to his room, shut himself inside, and didn’t emerge until morning.

Victor came to his door around ten-thirty, asking if they could talk, but Yuuri ignored him, in part because he didn’t want to speak to anyone right now, and also because his room was full of posters of Victor and there was no way Yuuri was letting his idol find out he had him plastered as wallpaper. In the morning, in fact, the first thing he did was take the posters down, folding them carefully and tucking them beneath his bed, except for a small postcard he’d had framed. That one he left where it was above his desk. 

When he went downstairs for breakfast, he braced himself for assault from Victor and Yuri, but Victor, it turned out, was already at the theater, and Yuri was playing with the stray cats in the alley behind the inn. Minako, however, waited for Yuuri at the Katsuki family table, and when he sat down to his food, she gave him an earful of a lecture too.

“I know that look on your face, Yuuri, and I don’t like it. You’re behaving as if you’ve already lost this competition, and that isn’t like you. I don’t know what whim brought Victor Nikiforov to Hasetsu, but don’t waste this chance.”

“I won’t. I didn’t intend to. A great deal happened yesterday, is all. It’s taken me a moment to process everything.” Yuuri nudged his egg with his chopsticks. “I’d already planned to ask you if I could stop by your studio later, whenever Victor was done showing us our routines. I’m a little rusty on my ballet. I don’t know that what he’ll give me as an assignment will incorporate it, but I thought, it can’t hurt…”

“Of course, I’ll be happy to. Come by anytime, even if it’s late. If I’m not at home, I’ll likely be here, drinking with your parents’ guests.”

Yuuri gave up pretending he was eating and set his chopsticks down. “I hadn’t even decided I was returning to compete again this year. I’d barely wrapped my head around the idea Victor was truly here, saying he’d be my coach, and now here he might be leaving already.”

“Only if you don’t stake your claim on him, Yuuri.”

“Yuri Plisetsky is the junior Grand Prix Champion.”

“ _Junior,_ though. You’re older than he is, and you’ve won your share of competitions too. No one holds a candle to your grace and form in a performance.”

“Yes, but my technical skills—”

“—can be improved with practice and confidence, the easiest aspects of success to conquer. What you have, Yuuri, no one can copy. It’s this Nikiforov saw in that film reel, the flicker of magic no aether can mimic, the one that pulled him out of Russia and drew him like a sudden storm into your life. Now it’s up to you to nurture that spark.”

The idea that something in him had drawn _Victor_ … “Maybe if he hadn’t given me _that_ piece. Minako-sensei, I was blushing simply listening to him. How am I supposed to perform such a story?”

Minkao arched an eyebrow and looked down her nose at him. “You’re asking me how to perform _Eros_ for the man you’ve had papered over your bedroom walls since you were old enough to blush over them? Even you’re not that naive.”

Yuuri’s cheeks, ears, and scalp beneath his hair went red, he blushed so hard. “ _Minako-sensei_.”

She ruffled his hair and rose from the table. “You’ll figure it out.”

Yuuri certainly didn’t figure out by the time he finished poking at his breakfast and went over to the Castle Theater. Yuri had reappeared around nine and asked if he were ready to go, and so the two of them had gone over together, awkwardly not talking to one another. Yuuri got the impression Yuri only asked him to come along because he couldn’t remember where the theater was, having gone there and come back the night before in the dark. 

Yuri was much shorter than Yuuri, but what he lacked in height he made up for in tension. He glowered at everything as they passed, though occasionally he would pause and remark on a statue, building, or shrine, quietly inviting Yuuri to explain what it was. For all his sour attitude about Yuuri, Yuri seemed to like Japan well enough. Yuuri had to admire the boy’s courage for coming all this way alone, and though he didn’t want to surrender Victor to him, he did feel for Yuri if he’d been expecting Victor to help him only to discover him suddenly vanished.

No, it was odd—Yuuri empathized with Yuri’s plight, but if anything Yuri’s presence was making him all that much more determined to find a way to win this competition. He still had no idea how he was going to do it, but he promised himself he would do his best and keep Victor here with him.

 _For coaching,_ he told himself sternly, as his mind replayed the feel of Victor pressing into him, asking him for a kiss.

Victor was on the stage when they entered the theater, and once again he was going through a storytelling routine, this time not using any aether, only pacing out the marks of the story, miming his presentation to the audience, turning this way and that as he murmured words to people who were not there. When he saw Yuuri and Yuri, Victor stopped rehearsing and smiled at them, motioning them forward.

“Oh good, you’re here. Excellent. I want to go over both of your routines with you today, and show each of you the whole of your stories, since you only had samples the other day. I wanted to start with you, though, Yuuri.” He tugged Yuuri onto the stage and drew him to the center, where he pressed two miniature aether pistols into his palms. “I need to know what releases you know how to do. I already know what Yurio knows—”

“Stop calling me that!”

“—because we’ve trained together in the same troupe, but I’m not familiar with your training enough to know what I can make part of your routine.” He closed his hands over Yuuri’s fists and ran his thumbs over the backs of Yuuri’s hands. “Tell me, Yuuri.”

Victor’s aether pistols were so tiny and fragile, nothing like the clunky guns Yuuri had to rely on, the ones he could barely conceal inside his gloves. He blushed, too ashamed to admit he didn’t have any idea how to work Victor’s equipment, that he barely knew how to do a third of the technical tricks he did. “I…I can do simple flares…I can do sparks…I can…”

“You can do triple pops and barrels—I’ve seen you do those as part of your routines in several competitions.”

Yuuri’s gaze shot up, meeting Victor’s. _He knows my routines well enough for that?_

When Victor smiled, his eyes twinkled. “Of course, your equipment is limited, so you could only do so much. I can teach you how to use my pistols for this competition, but that’s a risk, learning something new as well as managing a whole routine in a week’s time. I think perhaps you should stick to what’s familiar for now and focus on doing well on the techniques you know already.” Yuuri opened his mouth to protest, but Victor only winked at him and let go, backing away. “For now, let’s go through what I’ve laid out for your program.”

Short story programs were not Yuuri’s favorite. They were less focused on the narrative themselves, being only a few minutes long, and more about showcasing a storyteller’s technical skills, either in their manipulation of aether or their ability to navigate a story circle. Since Yuuri had only ever been passable with aether at best and his practice supply had been spotty to nonexistent, the element being import-only in Japan, he’d always relied on his own skills rather than that of the element. Which, if he’d been performing _Agape,_ wouldn’t have been so challenging. But the things Victor Nikiforov wanted him to say, he could barely bring himself to vocalize with no one but the three of them in the theater.

“The script is flexible, of course,” Victor told him when he balked at his lines, “but the concept is not. You are the dangerous siren wooing his lovers. Draw the audience in with your eros, Yuuri. Pull them into the palm of your hand…then brush them aside and turn away at the story’s end.”

“But I don’t know how to do that.” Yuuri worried his hands and leaned in, speaking in a hot whisper in hopes that the glowering Russian teenager didn’t hear his confession. “I don’t have…eros.”

Victor gave Yuuri a long look, then an enigmatic smile as he stepped closer, placing his right foot square in the center of Yuuri’s stance. When Yuri’s lips parted on a gasp, Victor pressed his thumb against the fat, wet part of his flesh, sending shivers down Yuuri’s spine, pinning him in place with his bright blue gaze.

“I _know_ that you do, Yuuri. I hope you decide to show it to me soon.”

What was strange, though, was that while Victor pressed _Yurio_ over and over on his failure to reach deep enough into his portrayal of _Agape_ , with Yuuri Victor only talked about technique. A better way to aim the aether gun, proper timing for release of an effect, drills so that he didn’t flub his stops when he was nervous. It was embarrassing, junior-level stuff he should have learned long ago—and had—but always seemed to stumble over when the pressure was on. Not that Yuuri _wanted_ to recite those embarrassing lines about what he wanted to do to his lover in front of Victor. But he was ready to do so anyway, because that’s what he’d need to do in order to keep Victor here. Yet Victor wouldn’t let him get to that point, apparently, because he was so remedial he couldn’t advance beyond this most basic of lessons.

Minako, unsurprisingly, told him he was worrying to much. Or rather, she told him worrying was pointless. “Do your best. What else can you do? Your ballet has already improved in a few days, and your body is toning back up quite quickly. Now all you need to do is ready your mind. How is fussing over what he thinks of you helping anything?”

“Because I want him to stay, and if I don’t do my best—”

“How is worrying yourself into a pretzel doing your best? Practice more. Memorize your narrative.”

“But something is _missing_ , this is what I’m telling you. I’m doing it _wrong_ —”

“Then do it wrong _more_ , and more discordantly, so you can see more clearly the way to doing it right.”

Yuuri tried. He truly, truly did. He spent hours and hours at Minako’s studio, at the theater, even up late in his room, working on his piece. He could that it was wrong easily enough, but not the ways. Not the ways that would help. Only that the piece didn’t feel like him. That it felt wrong on his skin.

Victor tried to help, and made it worse.

“Think of what eros means to you. Think of something that makes you lose your rational sense, makes you surrender your logical self for carnal desire.”

He’d looked at Yuuri with such hope as he’d said this. Yuuri had stared at him blankly, unsure of what he was supposed to be understanding. He tried, desperately, to meet Victor’s expectations. What made him lose rational sense? What did he desire above all things? What made him lose all control?

Yuuri gasped as the thought struck him, and he was so thrilled with discovery he spoke before he thought. “ _Katsudon_. Yes—that’s what makes me lose my control—katsudon!”

Victor had blinked at him. Yurio had laughed at him, as had everyone else. Yuuri had tried to run away, ashamed of his foolishness, but Victor had chased him down.

“Ignore them. If pork cutlet bowls are what make you lose control, then keep them in your mind’s eye as you perform.”

Yuuri thought his blush could likely heat the onsen. “That’s not what the story is about.”

“It doesn’t matter what the words are about. It matters what your heart speaks.” He pressed a hand over Yuuri’s chest. “Perform from here. If carnal passion for your mother’s signature dish is what moves you, then that is what will move your audience. It doesn’t matter if they know that’s what carried them there or not. Only that you do.”

Yuuri had felt hope after that, and he’d tried to make the _Eros of the Pork Cutlet Bowl_ work for his routine. It was decidedly better than what he had been doing, which was largely sputtering and blushing. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what he wanted it to be.

It wasn’t enough to keep Victor here with him. Which meant it wasn’t anything at all.

He had thought perhaps he was safe, or at least on equally unstable footing, because Yurio still struggled with the message in his _Agape_ and fought with Victor daily over it. But unlike he did Yuuri, Victor kept pressing Yurio, taking him to temples, scolding him for not trying hard enough, even taking him to a waterfall to try to crack his performance. The latter, it seemed, gave him something at last. The day after the trip to the waterfall, Yurio's performance was softer, gentler, and more nuanced. Still not where it needed to be—but far closer than Yuuri’s.

It was now the night before the competition, and Yuuri wanted nothing more than to curl into his futon and pull the covers over his ears, but all he could think of was that this was his last night with Victor. He knew Yurio would win, given the way things were. There was nothing he could do to change that. All he could hope for now was to soak up as much of Victor’s time as he could before it was too late. 

This time, he told himself, when Victor looked at him, when he reached for him, he wouldn’t turn away.

Except maddeningly, Victor made no reaches, cast him no glances. He sat at Yuutopia’s bar with Minako and Yuuri’s father, drinking and laughing late into the evening. Yuuri sat near them, waiting for the moment when Victor would turn his way, but it didn’t come. And so he only watched, heart aching, as time slipped away from him.

Then, shortly before midnight, Yuuri didn’t simply watch. He began to see.

It happened by accident—Minako’s hair had come out of its ponytail, and she reached back to smooth it over her shoulder with a delicate flick of her wrist. At the same moment Victor shifted on his chair and ran his fingers through his bangs. His gesture was slightly sloppy from drink, but it still had his grace, a grace of which Yuuri was well aware. Yet until that second, he’d never realized…

He watched the pair of them a bit longer, and he saw more similarities. The way they sat on their stools. The way they reached for their glasses. The way Victor tucked his foot behind the back ring of the stool, curling the toe of his shoe. The trill of his laugh, sometimes. And yet…yet…not the way he sat. Or held his glass. But oddly enough, the way _he_ tilted his head was more…that way than _she…_

Yuuri stood abruptly, the thought piecing his head like a lightning strike. Except the scrape of the chair, the way everyone turned to look at him chased it out as quickly as it had come.

“Sorry.” He blushed and left the bar, wandering aimlessly out into the garden, chasing that precious realization. _He’d had it. He’d had the answer in his hands, the secret to fixing his_ Eros _…_

“Yuuri?”

He turned, startled out of his reverie once again to find Victor standing at the other end of the garden.

The moonlight fell on Victor’s silver hair, making it gleam. He was tall, taller than Yuuri, and just as slender, but Yuuri kept thinking of the way he had looked at the bar, and his head rattled. _I’ve seen something important. Not only about the routine._ He took a step closer, walking on unsteady feet, his head halfway into the clouds. “Something about movement,” he murmured.

Victor’s eyebrows lifted slightly, then settled, his expression evening out as he watched Yuuri now. “You’ve found it.” A statement, not a question.

Yuuri hesitated, shook his head. “Not yet.” He paced a wide, clumsy circle around Victor, pinning him with his gaze. “Movement and…” He lost the edge of the instinct, swore under his breath in Japanese.

“You’ll find it.”

Despair, rage fired in Yuuri. “ _When?_ I’m out of time—” He cut himself off, pressed his hand to his mouth and turned away, facing the garden wall, looking out at the moon. 

He felt as much as heard Victor come up behind him. “There’s something I forgot to tell you earlier.” 

Yuuri shut his eyes, feeling heavy and weary. “What’s that?”

A cool hand rested on his hip, warm, soft lips brushing his ear.

“I love pork cutlet bowls.”

When Yuuri turned to him in surprise, Victor caught his chin lightly in his hand and brushed a kiss across his lips. As he drew away, for a moment they hovered there, regarding one another.

Then, with a soft, sad smile, Victor let him go, and retreated inside the inn.

Yuuri stood in the moonlight for several minutes, barely breathing. Then, before he could start to think too hard about anything, he went out the garden gate and down the road to Minako’s studio.

She was just arriving as he did, letting herself into the apartment above the building where she taught ballet to supplement her acting retirement income, and when he first explained to her what he wanted, she asked if he was drunk. But he persisted, not letting himself pause to doubt or question, only chasing that feeling, that buzz of rightness he’d felt for the first time since Victor had told him he’d had to perform this damned routine.

And as soon as Minako showed him, for the first time it _wasn’t_ a damned routine. It was _his_ routine. It _worked._

_Teach me how to move like a woman._

That’s what he’d asked her to show him, and that’s what she did. For the first three hours they ignored the narrative entirely, treating the routine as straight ballet. She even had him don pointe shoes at one point, and then heels, to help him shift the way he perceived his legs and his center of gravity, and one of her flowing costumes. Mostly, though, she had him face her and mimic her movements, had him work beside her at the mirror and the barre. Then, when the feeling burned in his blood, when it didn’t make him self conscious or stumble, he put the narrative back in place—and finally, an hour before he was to report to the theater, he threaded the effects back in.

“I’m still bad at them.” He clutched his bag of aether guns all the way to the theater, torn between chucking them into the sea and stopping to practice one more time. “I should have said I wanted to use my own.” In fact, Victor had _told_ him to, but he’d coaxed Yurio into teaching him how to use these, and now it was too late to do anything else. He didn’t have time to practice these specific effects with his guns and Victor’s aether. Not in— _dear God_ —half an hour.

“You’ll do your best. What else can you do?”

The theater, unsurprisingly, was packed to its gills. Everyone wanted to see the show, not only because they hadn’t seen Yuuri perform live in years but because it was Victor Nikiforov’s pupils and a Junior World Champion to boot. What a sight, one Hasetsu would likely never see again! Yuko met them backstage, gushing over their costumes, assuring them they would do well. 

Victor was there too, watching silently.

Yurio went first, and he made Yuuri nervous. His performance was even more achingly beautiful than it had been the other day. His Latin was perfect. His technique was exquisite. There was nothing to complain about in any aspect of his routine. And yet…there was not precisely anything to make it _ring_ , either. Plenty for a coach to improve upon.

_Please, Victor, don’t be that coach._

The crowd roared with applause when Yurio finished and stood on their feet for well over a minute—plenty of time for Yuuri’s butterflies to return. He stood in the wings, hands pressed in prayer over his mouth, breathing slowly against the tide of panic.

“Yuuri.”

The quiet rumble of Victor’s voice wrapped around him, lifted his heart. This time it was Yuuri who turned to him, Yuuri who embraced _him_ , who pulled him in close.

“Please watch me,” he whispered.

Then he let Victor go, slipped his index fingers into the triggers for the aether guns, and, on Yuko’s cue, walked onto the stage. He held his pose in the darkness, triggered the easy-aether to make the spotlight rise and send up the carmine flare and burst of sound. He lifted his head, stared out into the audience and smiled—at Victor, who had taken his place as judge in the front row.

“Who am I dancing for? I know who.”

He winked, blew Victor a coquettish kiss. And then he danced, literally and figuratively, across the circle of his stage.

“I don’t care if you like me or not. I don’t care if you think I’ve stolen him away.” He swished his imaginary skirts as he popped the aether guns, simple flourishes still, but they looked impressive, and the audience gasped, because it _appeared_ as if he did indeed wear a dress for a moment. “I don’t care what you think of me, or what you whisper about me when my back is turned.” He crossed his arms over his chest, remembered what it felt like to walk in heels and mimicked it as best he could, all the while readying for the big effect as he said his line. “Because _my_ back is pressed to _his_. I dance for _him_. Not you.”

The guns were meant to go off on both _not_ as well as _you,_ but only _you_ fired—the audience was still impressed, making excited sounds and whispering as the silhouette of a man and a woman went off above Yuuri’s head, but the smoke only _half_ cloaked him in a red dress, and in any event, this was a point effect, which Victor would know.

What had this mistake cost him? Had it cost him Victor?

_Don’t think about it. Keep going._

Yuuri threaded his fingers into his hair and moved into the ballet sequence, which also contained the next effect: a triple barrel shot, to shift the lighting, send up a main effect while also setting a smaller secondary (and immediate) one at the same time. Yuuri’s was to be a cascade of flowers followed by a soft patter of rain which disintegrated them. This was Victor’s invention, and it was an impressive effect, only possible with his expensive aether and made elegant only by his guns. Yuuri pulled this off almost seamlessly—almost. There was a little hitch in the flowers, a wibble in the rain patter. But the lighting shifted fine. 

His ballet, he couldn’t say. He hoped it was good.

At some point he stopped hoping, and he simply lost himself to the performance as best he could. He was a woman on what some would consider a a catastrophic path, but what she saw as a path of power. If the audience thought he was an accomplished actor, stepping well into a role, that was well enough.

If Victor understood who he danced for, that he was not thinking of katsudon…Yuuri didn’t know the answer to that thought. 

Victor didn’t help him out, either, once his performance finished. The entire theater roared for him, wept for him, called out that he was their hero, the pride of their town—but Victor’s expression told him nothing. A small smile, a bit of pride—but knowing? If he did, he hid it.

“Well done,” was all he said. “Though we’ll need to tighten your posture in those turns. Your leg was a bit sloppy.”

Yuuri blinked. “Yes, of course,” he said, because what else could he say?

“And while that triple barrel was decent, you were lucky it went off the way it did. That wasn’t control, that was fortune. If you’re going to use the fine guns, you need to _use_ them, not hope for the best.”

Oh, no. “Yes. You’re right.”

Yuuri’s heart was sinking and Victor was launching into another phase of the lecture when Minako cut him off with a hard glare and a bright smile for Yuuri. “You were wonderful. It all turned out just as we planned.” She cast a meaningful look at Victor. “Don’t you agree, Victor, that he did well?”

Victor blinked at her. “Of course he did well. He was marvelous. He’ll be even better by the time we get him ready for his first Grand Prix performance.”

Yuuri’s heart lifted, ever so slightly off the floor. “Wait—do you mean—?”

“That you won?” Victor waved a hand impatiently. “Of course you did. You doubted you would? Even Yurio knew. So much so he left in the middle of your performance. I believe he’s already boarded the airship home.” He sighed and pulled out his watch, glancing at it in annoyance. “We will still have an award ceremony, however, because Yuko and Nishigori worked so hard to prepare one. And because you deserve to have one as well. Though something tells me it isn’t the ceremony you were after.”

Yuuri’s heart was in his throat. And something else, something…swelling, strange, and wonderful began to grow inside him as Victor smiled, the twinkle in his eye darkening to something private that only the two of them could read. 

“No,” he admitted at last. “It wasn’t.”


	5. Yuuri on Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I never sat with anyone this way, enjoying simple silence and the beauty of a morning. I know you fear how you will pay my coaching fees, but you don’t understand, Yuuri, how much you have already given to me. You have so many gifts, and so much quiet strength. I have no doubt whatever story you decide to tell will be amazing. I’m prepared to wait as long as necessary to hear it, and I’m ready to support you in whatever way you need to help you tell it.”_

The party at Yuutopia lasted long into the night the evening of Yuuri’s win.

His mother and father invited anyone who wanted to celebrate to the inn, and the sake flowed freely, everyone toasting Yuuri and trying to refill his glass. He smiled and thanked them for their congratulations, but he had little more than a half a cup of drink before he let his glass sit brimming before him, untouched. His nerves had not come down with the end of the performance. If anything, they were worse.

The reason for this was the man beside him—the man with his arm around Yuuri as _he_ drank liberally of whatever anyone put before him, always trying to share with Yuuri. Victor laughed and smiled with everyone at the party, but he _beamed_ at Yuuri, running his hands across his shoulders, his back, his arms, his leg. Yuuri wouldn’t have been surprised to discover Victor had become a spider, he seemed to have so many hands, all of them reserved for Yuuri.

When Victor had enough to drink that he began taking off his clothes right there in the bar, Yuuri put an arm around his new coach and bid goodnight to everyone, declaring it was time he and Victor got to bed. “We begin training in the morning, after all,” he pointed out, and did his best to herd the drunk Russian up the stairs.

Victor didn’t help him at all, still trying to disrobe the entire way, and when this failed, he tried to remove Yuuri’s clothes instead. “You’re a wonderful storyteller, Yuuri,” he slurred, drawing out the U in Yuuri’s name with such a heavy accent that it gave Yuuri goosebumps. “You’ll be wonderful. You’ll win gold and break all my records and make me jealous of you.”

Yuuri gently, then more firmly pushed Victor’s hands away from the buttons of his shirt as he navigated a set of stairs. “I don’t wish to make you jealous, Victor-sensei.”

“ _Pfffft._ ” Victor undid three buttons at once as if he were some kind of magician and leaned into Yuuri’s neck as he slipped his hand inside Yuuri’s shirt. “Call me Victor, _Yuuri._ Victor or Vitya.” He licked Yuuri’s neck and chuckled. “Mmm, call me Vitya.”

Yuuri’s knees threatened to fold beneath him. They were two hallways down from Victor’s room, and he had no idea how he was going to make it there. He disengaged himself from Victor only to find himself tangled again, then trapped against the wall between Victor’s forearms, a drunk and grinning Victor looming over him. 

“Victor-san, please, we must get you to your room,” Yuuri whispered, unable to look him in the eye.

“ _Victor_ ,” he corrected, then stroked Yuuri’s cheek. “I will go to my room if you come to my room with me.”

There was no doubt in Yuuri’s mind what Victor meant by _come to my room with me_. And much as he yearned for that sort of thing, he had no idea how in the world he could ever face the man on the stage the next morning if he slept with him tonight. The very idea that he had to remind himself of this, that this was his reality, shook Yuuri to his core, unlacing every fabric of his reality, and for a moment he wasn’t sure how to behave, what to do. He was tempted not to think at all, to perhaps allow Victor’s hand to keep traveling inside his shirt, to close over his nipple even as Victor’s mouth was closing in on…

Pride, honor, and dignity rose up from where Yuuri’s parents had instilled it in him, and he pushed Victor away, breathing hard and shaking, but standing firm for the first time. “Victor-sensei,” he rasped, forcing his voice to remain steady, “I will not dishonor my family nor the training you have promised me by behaving this way with you in the hallway of my parent’s house on the night before you are to formally become my teacher. Nor will I go to bed with you and make that dishonor worse.”

He wasn’t sure it was going to work, this speech, and he had no idea what was to be done if it didn’t. But to his surprise—and relief—Victor yielded. Chagrined, like a wounded puppy, he shuffled down the hallway, not touching Yuuri, heading toward his room. But at the door he paused, put his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder one last time.

“Please call me Victor.”

It wasn’t a seduction, it wasn’t a plea. It was a simple, quiet request, and somehow it was for this reason Yuuri couldn’t deny it. Nodding curtly, he inclined his head in a small bow. “Goodnight, Victor. I will see you in the morning.”

Yuuri barely slept, however. All he could think about was the way Victor had touched him, how much, were he honest, he’d wanted to be touched in return. He knew he’d been in the right to turn Victor away, especially drunk, but he his skin burned with the aftermath of Victor’s touch. His brain scrambled anew with the reality he lived in now: Victor was his coach. He wasn’t deciding whether or not he was returning to the storytelling competition. He _was_ returning, and he was rehearsing tomorrow, in earnest. And he was doing so with Victor Nikiforov at his side, as his mentor.

He was formally an apprentice now—now that he was so old to be an apprentice was laughable.

Victor’s first apprentice.

Victor had quit performing to take him on.

Victor had seen his Shanghai alley copy of Victor’s own routine—that horrible mess with no proper aether, no costumes, that grainy footage—and thrown everything away to be with Yuuri.

Victor also seemed to want to take Yuuri to bed, at least when he was full of sake and plum wine.

Yuuri covered his face with his hands, then tugged the futon over his head, curling into a ball as he pleaded with his brain to please stop cycling long enough to let him pass out.

He did, eventually, but not until the wee hours of the morning, and he barely slept at all before his mother woke him to come to breakfast. Victor was already there, incredibly, looking slightly rough but by and large was the same as he ever was: smiling, cheerful, and happy to see Yuuri.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” he said as Yuuri sat across from him.

“Good morning, Vi—” Yuuri stopped, catching the look in Victor’s eye.

He still smiled, but there was more than a twinkle in his gaze. There was a push, a nudge that told Yuuri his mentor had not been so drunk he didn’t remember everything that had transpired between them. It was a look which said, quite clearly, _I will honor my side of the bargain if you honor yours._

Yuuri’s face heated, and he fixed his gaze firmly into his tea. “Good morning, Victor.” Then he glanced up again.

Victor nodded, looking pleased…and a little sad. But his voice was bright as he said, “Once we eat breakfast, shall we go to the theater and begin?”

Why, Yuuri wondered, did he feel a little sad too? He didn’t let himself dwell on the thought, though, only nodded and pulled the pot of rice closer to his bowl. “Yes, that sounds fine,” he replied, and helped himself to some food.

 

* * *

 

“What would you like to do for your long program? Do you have anything in mind?”

Victor asked this of Yuuri as they sat together on the stage, resting after a series of drills with Victor’s smaller aether guns, which Yuuri was beginning to fear he’d never get the hang of. He also had no idea how he would ever afford to pay the aether bill, let alone whatever Victor’s coaching fees were, and the more he worried about his mounting costs, the worse his performance became. Victor had suggested a break, which Yuuri appreciated, but now he had yet another thing to obsess over. It had never occurred to him he’d need to design his own routine.

“Usually my coach selects something for me.” He worried his bottom lip in his teeth. “But that’s not how you do it, is it? You always design your own routines. You always have, ever since you began as a storyteller, even when you were an apprentice.”

Victor nodded. “I believe it’s good for a storyteller to participate in the story itself. It’s too difficult to be invested in someone else’s story. Certainly I can help you find a better _way_ to express the tale you want to tell, if that’s what you want from me, but I feel quite strongly you need to find the core of the program on your own.”

Yuuri stifled the automatic sense of panic that rose inside him. “I wouldn’t know where to begin, selecting a story.”

“With something that has meaning to you, of course.” Victor pressed his index finger to his lips as he contemplated Yuuri. “Have you truly never participated at all in the design of your own programs? Wasn’t Celestino your coach in the past? Did you work with him in Detroit?”

Yuuri nodded, keeping his gaze on Victor’s feet. “I participated in his training camp there, yes, but I could never afford to be a formal apprentice.” His cheeks stained with shame, and he pushed aside fear that this would drive Victor away, if he realized Yuuri couldn’t afford it now either. “I did ask a friend to help me design a program once, but Celestino didn’t care for it.”

Victor brightened. “So you _did_ choose your own story once. Do you still have this program?”

Yuuri flushed to the roots of his hair. “Yes, but—”

It didn’t matter how he protested. Now that Victor knew Yuuri’s self-chosen story existed, Victor wouldn’t rest until they went back to Yuutopia and dug it out of Yuuri’s trunks—and thank heavens Yuuri had put all the posters of Victor well out of sight by this point. It was embarrassing enough to sit on his bed as Victor read through the storyboard, only to nod and hand Yuuri the papers and say, “Hmm, I see why Celestino didn’t think this would work. Did you have any other ideas for original stories?”

Yuuri did not, but it soon became clear that no matter how long he failed to come up with ideas, Victor would never choose for him, not even so much as suggesting options for him to consider. Part of Yuuri was glad for this, as it had always been his dream to create his own story entirely just as Victor did, but the pressure of doing so _for Victor_ , with him standing there waiting to judge Yuuri’s efforts was too much pressure. The more Yuuri thought of it, the more panicked he became, and the more he messed up even the most basic aspects of his training, which made him fear Victor would become disappointed with him and leave which made him fail further. It was an endless cycle, and he didn’t know how to interrupt it.

“We shouldn’t waste aether when all I’m doing is making mistakes,” he told Victor when he couldn’t take one more day of the pressure at rehearsal. 

He braced himself for Victor’s disappointment, but all his mentor did was smile at him. “Very well. Perhaps we should take a walk on the beach and try to find you some inspiration.”

Yuuri didn’t want to walk anywhere, only wanted to go back to his room and cocoon himself in his futon, but he could hardly refuse Victor when Yuuri was doing nothing but waste his time, and so to the beach they went, Makkachin bounding happily at their heels. Yuuri was prepared for Victor to lecture him, or prod him, or _something_ , but all he did was walk beside him. When they’d walked for some time, they rested on some rocks overlooking a small bay, but still they sat in silence until Victor pointed out it was getting close to time for lunch, and they should return.

They did this every day for a week. In the morning they met at breakfast table, then went to the beach instead of the theater and walked together in silence, sat at the bay, then returned for lunch. Afterward they went to the theater and went through some drills without the aether guns, mostly standard story circle ballet routines Yuuri could do in his sleep. It was simple and utterly unchallenging. It was, however, quite soothing.

On the seventh day of their new routine, as they settled into the bay, Victor spoke, gazing out at the gulls on the water with a wistful smile as he ruffled Makkachin’s fur. 

“I never appreciated the ocean in St. Petersburg, nor the gulls. It was there, but I never thought about it as part of my home. Now every time I see the ocean here I think of the ocean there, and the birds. Odd, isn’t it, how sometimes you need to leave your home in order to appreciate it?” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “Which must sound strange, as for most of my life all I’ve done is travel. I haven’t _lived_ somewhere like I’m doing now, though. I suppose that’s the difference. I’m making Hasetsu my home in so many ways, which makes me realize how long it’s been since I’ve had one at all.”

Yuuri glanced at him, surprised. “But surely you spent time in St. Petersburg, training?”

“Yes, but that was _all_ I did: training. Training and focusing on how to best my performance from the year before. Making sure I kept ahead of whoever was nipping at my heels. I never stayed up late practicing my Japanese with fishermen or taking bets to see if I can out drink your father—which it turns out I cannot. I never spent this much time with Makkachin. I never took walks by the sea at all, let alone did so every day.” He turned to Yuuri, smiling softly. “I never sat with anyone this way, enjoying simple silence and the beauty of a morning. I know you fear how you will pay my coaching fees, but you don’t understand, Yuuri, how much you have already given to me. You have so many gifts, and so much quiet strength. I have no doubt whatever story you decide to tell will be amazing. I’m prepared to wait as long as necessary to hear it, and I’m ready to support you in whatever way you need to help you tell it.”

Yuuri didn’t respond to this right away, but he wasn’t focused on the ocean any longer. He was too aware of how close Victor sat to him, how they sat on the same piece of driftwood and that their hands were but inches from one another on the log and that, if he focused, he could feel the heat of Victor’s hand. His own heart felt warm from Victor’s gentle praise, and familiar pressure of Makkachin on his feet was comforting.

“I do want to do well,” he said at last. “My goal is always to win the Grand Prix. I was disappointed in myself for failing this year, but I didn’t want anyone to try and comfort me, to look down on me for my weakness.”

“Is that what you believe, that I think you’re weak?” Victor shook his head. “You’re not. Not at all. I’ve never thought that. Not even at the final.”

Yuuri’s heartbeat quickened. “You…knew who I was at the finals?”

“Of course I did.”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to this, so he said nothing. But his head spun with the notion that Victor had been aware of him all this time. He wished he dared to ask what he had thought of Yuuri then.

Victor’s fingers brushed Yuuri’s on the log. “Yuuri…what do you want me to be to you? I know you want me to be your coach, but…I’ve never done this before, and sometimes I’m at a loss as to how to behave as a mentor. Do you want me to be a…father figure to you?”

Yuuri made a face. “No.”

“A brother, then?”

Yuuri shook his head.

“A friend.”

Yuuri didn’t respond. Yes, he wanted Victor as a friend. But something in him wouldn’t let him speak. _I want more than friendship,_ he thought, but was too embarrassed to say because he didn’t know how to explain it, and so he said nothing, only gave a half shrug.

Victor’s hand rested over Yuuri’s. “A lover?”

Yuuri leapt off the log, heart beating at his throat as he held up his hands and waved them in Victor’s face. “No. _No._ ” When Victor looked crestfallen, Yuuri scrambled to explain. “It isn’t that I don’t…want you. But I don’t know how to be that and your apprentice too.” His face flamed. “What I feel for you, Victor, is more than simple lover’s feelings. I have admired you my whole life. I’m a storyteller because of you. I entered the Grand Prix because I wanted to show you I could compete on the same stage as you, that I had worked to become as good as you were. And now you are here, complicating those feelings—enriching them by helping me, but complicating them too. That isn’t bad, but…but I want to be careful with them. Those feelings, and you, are very important to me.”

The wind ruffled Victor’s hair as he smiled, his gaze tender, and extended his hand. “Then I’ll honor those feelings, but I’ll challenge them too, by urging you to become stronger and better than you are now, teaching you all I know.”

This is exactly what he did. They still took their walks on the beach, but they were shorter now, because Yuuri spent the mornings learning every technique Victor had to teach. He was comfortable with the slim guns now, but he still had to learn the advanced skills he hadn’t been able to pull off with any kind of equipment—he wasn’t even close to perfecting Victor’s patented quad flip, a rapid-fire four shot explosion from one gun followed by an exact repeat from the second, resulting in the powerful illusions Victor was known for, such as realistic trees with falling leaves set to music against a starry sky while he himself was cloaked in a veil of mist and glitter. It took precise control with the gun and unbelievable skill with the aether itself to call up so many illusions at once and hold them in place _while still telling a story_ with any kind of artifice, and the whole point was to make it appear as if the illusions were simply happening, as if there were no guns involved at all. Yuuri could manage a triple most of the time, and that was as good as he could muster. He still had trouble with his barrel rolls—one illusion after another—and several of the other illusions.

All this was still standard drill rehearsal. Victor had yet to bring up Yuuri’s long program again, but Yuuri hadn’t forgotten it, and as the weeks wore on, he began working on an idea on his own. He worried it was too bold, or worse, that he looked ridiculous for suggesting it, but every time he tried to think of another idea, this was the only one that came to him. And so he kept writing it, crafting the storyboard until finally one day it was ready and, heart pounding, he brought it to Victor.

His mentor was thrilled to see it and flipped eagerly through the pages, scanning the storyboard and the narrative Yuuri had written in the side. All the while Yuuri knelt across from him at the table, his heart in his throat, until finally Victor looked up, blue eyes beaming.

“Yuuri, this is wonderful. It’s the perfect program for you. I love it.”

Yuuri flushed under his praise. “It isn’t too self-indulgent?”

Victor shook his head, sifting through the storyboards again. “Not at all. Many storytellers use personal narratives, as you well know. If you’re concerned because you fell yours is too simple, I think you’re wrong. That’s a strength. People always overwrite their programs, and they’re too hard to choreograph with effects, and too difficult for the audience to relate to. This is a straight-forward, relatable tale of someone finding their way to their goals.” He smiled at Yuuri. “What were you considering for a title?”

It felt like all Yuuri did was blush around Victor. “I thought… _Yuuri on Ice._ ”

Victor beamed. “ _Perfect_. Because you thaw toward the end? Oh, Yuuri, there’s so much you could do for effects with that.”

Yuuri had thought so too. He smiled back, his chest warm and full. “I’m glad you like it. I was hoping you would.”

Victor put the storyboards down, took Yuuri’s hands. He kissed the knuckles, squeezed the fingers tight, his blue eyes dancing. “Shall we go to the theater and make a plan for your wonderful story?”

Yuuri squeezed back, spirit soaring, already giddy with thoughts of what the months ahead would be like, planning this story with Victor. “Yes. Let’s.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in a bit of limbo this week waiting for an edit, and I'm in the mood to update this sucker again, so look for more frequent chapters on this for a bit.
> 
> Also if you have a yen to do so, you can find me on tumblr at @cullinankatsudon, twitter at @heidicullinan, and my day job at heidicullinan.com.


	6. The Music of Your Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He smiled as he laced his fingers through Yuuri’s. “But now that’s changed, because of you. Because I’m helping you find yours.”  
>  Yuuri’s cheeks heated, but it wasn’t anything to the heat of Victor’s touch against his hand. “And that’s enough for you? Helping me? Watching me tell my story? Not telling your own?”  
> “I am fully content in my situation, yes,” Victor replied.  
> “I’m glad,” Yuuri said. But as they kept walking, he couldn’t help thinking of how his dream had never been to be coached by Victor but to compete against him. And he felt somewhat sad, acknowledging that he had undone his own dream.  
> He also couldn’t help but notice that as they kept walking, Victor didn’t let go of his hand._

 

 

Throughout the summer, Yuuri continued to perfect his routine and practice the new techniques Victor had taught him. They settled into quite a comfortable routine: a walk on the beach in the morning after breakfast together, rehearsal at the theater, lunch at the inn, more rehearsal, some time at Minako’s studio working on specific drills, then dinner and a soak in the onsen after before bed. 

The two of them were constantly together—the two of them and Makkachin, who if he wasn’t running circles around the pair of them was napping at one or both of their feet, or in the wings of the theater where he could keep an eye on them both. Somehow at night Makkachin had begun sleeping with Yuuri as often as he did Victor, which Yuuri worried would hurt his coach’s feelings, but this only seemed to please Victor, and since Yuuri enjoyed the dog’s company in bed as well, he took to leaving his door cracked in case Makkachin decided to visit him in the middle of the night.

Yuuri felt as if he were carrying on seven or eight constant conversations with Victor. It wasn’t uncommon for them to launch directly into them once they’d greeted each other good morning, picking up where they’d left off the day before. Victor, for example, was trying to learn more Japanese. He always had a book in his hand and wanted help with passages and grammar, or troublesome kanji. Yuuri, feeling he should only be polite, had asked one day if Victor would teach him some Russian, which had been like taking the plug out of a floodgate, and now every morning Victor had a new bit of vocabulary for him in addition to his usual quiz of the Cyrillic alphabet.

They spoke of other things too, however. Sometimes they talked about Yuuri’s routines and how they were progressing, and sometimes they spoke of the storytelling world in general, and how he might fare in it. What they never spoke of, though, what Yuuri was never brave enough to ask, was why Victor had left it behind for Yuuri.

“It looks to be quite a season,” Victor remarked one morning as they walked along the beach. It was early, but it was warm already, and Victor had his shirtsleeves rolled up, the buttons undone to reveal the undershirt beneath, his jacket left behind at the inn. “No one has been assigned their contests yet, but Mila has been sending me reams of letters keeping me abreast of all the gossip, and it looks like all the usuals will be there from last year, plus a few new faces, both from the junior division and simply from the weeds, people who got themselves better coaches and are ready to make a run for the cup.” He grinned as he tossed a piece of driftwood for an eager Makkachin. “Apparently, though, everyone is convinced the rumors I have taken the year off are false, that I will appear with a routine after all. I think we will shock them, Yuuri, when we appear.”

Yuuri thought so too, and the thought didn’t make him smile. “Are you…still happy with your decision?” _Do you wish you did have a routine ready after all?_

Victor glanced at him, surprised. “But of course I am. How could I be anything else?”

Yuuri eyed him critically. “You’ve performed every year of your life, Victor, since you were seven years old. And now you aren’t, because of me.”

Victor tipped his head back, letting the sun fall fully on his face as he smiled. “Ah, yes, and it’s a wonderful feeling. Something new. Something different.”

Yuuri wanted to believe this. He needed to. Without being conscious of what he was doing, he reached for Victor’s arm, held his wrist gently. “Truly? You mean this? I haven’t…taken you away from your art?”

Victor opened his eyes and regarded him with some surprise—he glanced at Yuuri’s hand, but when Yuuri would have taken it away, Victor caught his fingers and held them. “But how have you taken me away from any art? Now I’m part of helping you with yours. It’s a new challenge—and it’s far more difficult. I don’t always know if I’m worthy of the task, which makes me sweat a bit, and I enjoy that. I haven’t done that in performances for some time. To start, I competed with no one but myself, and then every year I had to top whatever I did. I was expected to win every title, every competition, and as soon as the gold medal was in my hand, every reporter came to me, every film reel camera aimed at me and demanded to know what I was going to do next to make it better. It stopped being art a long time ago, for me, Yuuri, at least in the way I wanted it to be.” He smiled as he laced his fingers through Yuuri’s. “But now that’s changed, because of you. Because I’m helping you find yours.”

Yuuri’s cheeks heated, but it wasn’t anything to the heat of Victor’s touch against his hand. “And that’s enough for you?  Helping me? Watching me tell my story? Not telling your own?”

“I am fully content in my situation, yes,” Victor replied.

“I’m glad,” Yuuri said. But as they kept walking, he couldn’t help thinking of how his dream had never been to be  coached by Victor but to compete against him. And he felt somewhat sad, acknowledging that he had undone his own dream.

He also couldn’t help but notice that as they kept walking, Victor didn’t let go of his hand.

In fact, Victor often touched him, held him, stroked his shoulders, in ways that would have made him nervous or confused when they’d first met and yet now seemed a perfectly normal part of being with Victor Nikiforov—though Yuuri noted no one else in their company received this kind of physical attention from his coach. At first he’d worried Victor was attempting to go back on their agreement, that he was once more seducing Yuuri, but no, all Victor ever did was touch. When they ate, Victor sat beside him, not across from him, even if only the two of them ate together, and he sat so close their bodies touched and arms brushed as they ate. He fed Yuuri bites of food he felt were particularly delicious, urged him to try his wine or his sake or his tea and held the cup for him. After a long day of practice, Victor would kneel behind Yuuri and massage his shoulders and his back while he went over what he felt were the high points and the mistakes of the day.

Sometimes Victor did these massages in the onsen, especially if they went late and the two of them were alone. He’d lull Yuuri into submission in the hot water, then urge him onto a rock where Victor would knead him and stretch him while they spoke softly about the day, about the upcoming competitions. Yuuri felt a bit wicked for those moments, because for him at least they were not so innocent, coach and student relaxing. All his feelings for Victor that he thought he had buried so well rose up like the steam surrounding them when they were together like that. But he could never say no when Victor took his hand and asked him if he wanted a massage. Especially when he asked so innocently and never did anything untoward. It was, apparently, only Yuuri who had lecherous thoughts now.

The day the telegram with Yuuri’s competition assignments arrived, however, Yuuri didn’t have room for lecherous thoughts. He was too busy feeling shamed and upset, and when Victor lured him into the baths, he went gratefully, eager to escape the looks from his family and friends.

“I should have known they would make me compete at nationals.” He flung his towel against the rocks and stalked into the water, pushing himself into a dark corner, where he huddled gloomily. “My performances were abysmal last year. I should have expected nothing less. But it doesn’t mean I’m not ashamed by it.”

“There’s nothing at all to be ashamed of.” Victor sat beside him, but not as close as usual, and the reason for this turned out to be so he could collect one of Yuuri’s feet beneath the water and put it in his lap to massage it gently. “If anything it gives you a chance to perfect your routines with less pressure. You’ll be able to get some high scores early on, and when you arrive at the real competitions, you’ll be that much stronger in your performance.”

“Yes, but if I fail—”

“Yuuri, why would you fail?”

Yuuri shut his eyes. “Because I always do. I go to competitions, get nervous, and I fail. I—”

He yelped, opening his eyes in alarm as he was dragged, foot first, onto Victor’s lap.

For a heart-stopping moment he sat there, so close his nose touched Victor’s, staring into his icy blue eyes less than an inch away. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. 

Then Victor rose, turning Yuuri’s body around and planting his feet on the ground as he did so. Yuuri’s legs were jelly, but it didn’t matter, because Victor held him, supporting him as if they were dancing a ballet together. “When you perform, your body moves like music, Yuuri. Your body tells the story all on its own, as if it knows all the stories of the universe and doesn’t need a single special effect or note of song to accompany them. Did you know that when I saw the news reel of your dance the first time it had no sound? I was on the other side of a wall of glass. All I saw was you, moving to my routine. You moved more smoothly than I did, using nothing.”

Yuuri trembled as Victor’s hand slid across his wet stomach, moving dangerously close to his groin. “I…I didn’t know that.”

“You undid me. You moved me and everyone who saw that footage.” His hand slipped over Yuuri’s quaking hip, down to his knee, and drew his leg backward in a graceful arc. “And now you wish to tell me you can’t perform at a simple national show? That this meager event could undo you?”

Yuuri could feel Victor’s erection pressing into his backside. He couldn’t speak, only squeak. 

Victor’s nose was buried in Yuuri’s hair, his lips moving against Yuuri’s neck as he let go of that leg and adjusted to stretch the other, adding an arm this time as well. “You will seduce me there too, Yuuri. Me and everyone in the audience. And then we will go on to China, where you will also do well. Then on to Russia, where I will enjoy letting everyone see my pupil dazzle on my native soil. And then on to Spain, where you will win the Grand Prix Final and be crowned the greatest storyteller in the world.”

Yuuri could scarcely stand. Trembling, he tried to tip his head back and sink into him, but Victor had his forehead pressed against his nape, and he couldn’t. In the end all he could do was grip Victor’s wrist and squeeze it tight.

“Say it, Yuuri.” Victor’s voice was gruff but still a siren’s call. “Tell me you will do this. That you will go to nationals and make music with this beautiful body. That you will let me see what I saw in that news reel, this time with my own eyes. This time knowing it was I who helped you arrive on that stage.”

If Victor asked him now—if he so much as traced a finger down Yuuri’s arm, Yuuri would go to him. For a kiss, for a night, forever, whatever he wanted. “Yes,” Yuuri said, not even sure what he was agreeing to at this point.

He waited, half-fearful, half-hoping Victor would instigate a kiss, that he would break his promise and lead them into something more. But all he did was squeeze Yuuri’s wrist, whisper, “Good,” and lead him out of the baths for the showers.

Yuuri lay in bed that night for hours, hugging Makkachin as he tried to work out if he was relieved or disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm trying to stick mostly to the script (while putting it in an alternate universe), but this is a combination of moving the hot tub "stretching" scene and adding in a bit of what I feel like we didn't get between the lining up of the long program and episode five. I'll probably do more of these too, because what I keep running into from a narrative standpoint is you need more of this stuff laid down or there's not enough pipe running for the emotional moments later. Obviously I have the equivalent of episode seven in mind, but to get there a lot of prep work has to be done, and it's interesting noticing what is and isn't there if I follow the script exactly.
> 
> Frankly writing this AU is a wonderful exercise and a lot of fun. I always wish I had more time for it.


	7. Notice me, senpai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the crowd roared, he remained in place, accepting their praise, but he had eyes only for the man in the tan coat, standing at the rail, watching him.
> 
> Please be proud of me, Victor. Please, oh please, be proud of me.

Yuuri tried to enjoy the trip to Tokyo for the national competition, but he was too nervous.

Minako-sensei and Nishigori came along to support him, which should have been a comfort, but mostly he feared this meant he’d have more witnesses for when he failed miserably. He didn’t _intend_ to fail miserably, and he planned to do everything in his power not to, but it hadn’t been his plan to fail at the Grand Prix Finals, either, or the nationals last year. 

The thought of failing and embarrassing Victor in his debut as a coach left Yuuri in a cold sweat every time he thought about it. 

If Victor had any fears over the competition, he hid them well. He’d never been to Tokyo and was looking forward to the trip, he said, but he seemed equally enthralled with their method of conveyance. He’d seemed genuinely shocked to discover they weren’t taking an airship to the capital—the very idea of that had left Yuuri speechless—but had quickly become excited at the prospect of taking first a ferry and then a second-class train. “I’ve never ridden second-class. I’m sure it will be very exciting.”

Yuuri had doubted there was much to find thrilling in the hard benches of second class, but Victor managed it. He’d loved the ferry, capturing Yuuri’s hand and keeping him beside him at the rail, marveling at the beauty of the sea as they chugged toward the mainland, but he was just as excited with the train, delighting over how narrow the aisles and rows were, wondering where in the world he was meant to put his luggage, laughing when the porter expected him to heft it onto the racks himself. “This is marvelous,” he kept saying. Everything, it seemed, was an adventure to Victor Nikiforov.

He sat beside Yuuri as the train bore them toward Tokyo, leaning over him to point out the window at rice fields and trees and horse carts and people and animals and once, a cloud. “Japan is wonderful, Yuuri.”

Yuuri, who loved his country well enough but had seen it for most of his life, stared at Victor’s shining blue-green eyes instead. When Victor turned his head and saw him, Yuuri blushed and tried to turn away, but Victor caught his chin and held him gently in place.

“You will do well. There’s no need to be nervous. You know your routines. You’ve competed on world stages none of your competitors can dare to dream of. And now you’ve lured me halfway around the world to be your coach. You have nothing to fear.”

Yuuri kept his gaze on Victor’s chin. _I don’t want to let you down_. He couldn’t say this, though, so he only deepened his resolve _not_ to let Victor, the others, or anyone else be disgraced by his performance.

The theater where the nationals were held teemed with people as they arrived, and Victor’s presence caused an immediate stir. He had dressed in a resplendent black suit for his debut as a coach, and while Yuuri checked his equipment and investigated when his turn to rehearse in the area would be, Victor stood in a crowd of press and adoring fans. Yuuri couldn’t say he appreciated this, and so rather than wait for his coach—such as he was—he proceeded to the warm up area on his own.

God, he was so nervous. What had he been thinking, come all the way out here? Why hadn’t he simply retired and been done with it? Why had he thought he had the right to—

“ _Katsuki-senpai!_ ” 

Yuuri glanced up in time to see a young man beaming at him. Like Yuuri, he wore a floor-length warm-up drape meant to keep his costume free from dirt and stains and to ward off the chill of the air backstage, which always seemed extra cool as a side-effect of too much aether use. The young man’s drape was in his high school colors, however, while Yuuri’s was black with blue piping and a Japanese flag from his tours as a representative of Japan in international competitions. 

The young man’s cheeks were red, his eyes glassy with admiration as he regarded Yuuri. “Senpai, I’m so glad you’ve returned to the stage! I can’t wait to see your performance.”

Yuuri stared at the person before him, trying to place him, but he couldn’t. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

The young man looked briefly wounded, but recovered quickly. “I’m Minami Kenjirou, senpai. We competed against each other last year.” Minami’s chest puffed up as he added with no small amount of pride, “And I beat your score last year! I didn’t make it past nationals, but I’m going to next year. I’m aiming to beat you this year too! I want to go the Grand Prix Final with you, senpai!”

 _Oh_. Yuuri remembered this young man now. Minami, who, yes, had beat Yuuri last year when he’d been on his downward spiral. His cumulative scores and relative experience had secured him a space in the international circuit, but Yuuri never forgot how close he’d come to not going at all. He didn’t appreciate being reminded how precariously he was positioned yet again. 

“Excuse me,” he said to Minami, fixing his gaze to a quieter part of the staging area. “I need to focus on my preparations.”

Yuuri couldn’t focus, though. He was too aware of the others around him—he was the oldest participant by far, because at his age, at his stage of his career, he wasn’t supposed to be an apprentice. He was supposed to at least be a more secure independent performer, with scores that meant he could skip the national competition. What if he _did_ screw up again? What if he let everyone down, and this time Victor with them? 

Victor came up to him, a grim expression on his face. Yuuri’s stomach twisted in a new knot. “What’s wrong?”

“I saw you interacting with your admirer.” Victor crossed his arms over his chest. “Yuuri. How do you think you can motivate yourself if you can’t motivate others?”

Yuuri stared at Victor, torn between guilt and anger. In the end he said nothing, and when he was called for his warm-up time in the arena, he left, trying not to tremble. 

Motivate others to motivate himself? That was ridiculous. He had to focus on himself. He’d drawn the first lot to perform, so the second the time was called to clear, he’d shed his cloak, take the center of the stage, and begin. He had to think of how he would charm the judges, the audience, how—

Yuuri froze in the middle of the stage, arrested by the realization. _Oh_.

“Yuuri.”

He turned to see Victor at the observation rail, standing with the other coaches. Across the way a score of press took photographs and turned the cranks of motion picture cameras, and despite the fact that the stage was full of performers, most of the press had their lenses trained on Victor.

Yuuri crossed to Victor, unsure if he should apologize or not, but before he could work out how to handle that, Victor spoke again.

“Yuuri, turn around.”

Confused, Yuuri did—and immediately, Victor engulfed him in an embrace from behind. Across from them, cameras cranked wildly and flashes of aether lit up the air.

“Victor,” Yuuri whispered, breathless. He gasped, eyes fluttering closed on a blink as Victor spoke with a voice like velvet into his ear.

“Stop thinking of how you’re going to disappoint me and start thinking of how you’re going to seduce me.”

He pressed a kiss on the skin behind Yuuri’s ear, squeezed his hip, then withdrew, just as the announcer called for all but the first performer to leave the stage.

With shaking hands and a spinning head, Yuuri unfastened his cloak and handed it to Victor. Then, drifting on the stunned haze of Victor’s demand, he moved to the center of the stage.

When the tone sounded, indicating the judges were ready for him to begin, he triggered the spotlight, set off the dusky smoke and whisper of Spanish music, and lifted his head, winking and blowing a kiss to Victor, who was right where Yuuri knew he would be: front and center in the observation area before him.

“Who am I dancing for? I know who.”

He smiled as he triggered his flowing, ever-changing ruffled red dress—this was his highest point aether effect, as he kept it going throughout the routine, even while triggering other effects as well. Victor had been impressed to discover Yuuri could maintain multiple effects like this, but if Yuuri had one skill, it was his stamina. He kept the dress steady while setting off red and orange sunset bursts behind him and all the while performing his ballet—and of course, telling his story.

“I don’t care what you think of me. It’s my back pressed to his, not yours. Nothing you can do can stop me. I _will_ have him tonight.” Yuuri smiled wickedly. “But _only_ for tonight.”

There was so much to remember. He wasn’t messing up, and he wasn’t full of his usual terror, but he was keenly aware of _how many_ elements he was juggling. And that all the while, Victor watched him. This judgment he worried over more than the scores themselves.

“I’ll have him. I’ll take him and do what I want. I am Eros.” Yuuri stalked down the center line of the stage, keeping the boundaries in his sights, calculating trajectories, lining up his aether guns for the final shot. “Once he sees me, he’ll never take his eyes off me.”

The guns went off with an audible _bang_ , Yuuri’s “gown” transforming to red glitter as the entire stage bloomed in billowing red smoke, swirling in artful curls that made the crowd gasp until they consumed Yuuri, at which point he let the latter half of the effect trigger, and the glitter sparkled into a fade, making it appear as if he disappeared—but he’d added the silhouette of a man, and so it seemed as if Yuuri had literally absconded with a man from the stage. 

It was a terribly risqué performance, and standing there in the smoke, his face was red with heat. But outside his cocoon, he heard the crowd roar with applause, and when the aether cleared, he smiled and took his bow.

Victor was smiling as he waited for Yuuri in the receiving area, but…

“Your dress faded twice during two of the more complex shots, and your fade at the end had off-timing.” Victor tapped the side of his cheek. “I think I’d like to see you take down the technical elements in your long program. You focus too much on the effects, and you’re losing some of your incredible grace in storytelling, which is your personal signature.”

Yuuri’s jaw fell open. “You want me to— _what_? I can’t take out the effects! I won’t even qualify without them!”

Victor waved this away. “Of course you can. All you need to do is score high enough on artistry that it doesn’t matter.”

Easy enough for Victor Nikiforov to say. Yuuri frowned at him and said nothing more.

Minako and Nishigori came up then, both of them beaming with tears in their eyes. “You were so amazing, Yuuri.” Minako embraced him and pulled him to her shoulder, smearing his makeup. 

Nishigori thumped him on the back. “You’re a true son of Japan. I bet your scores will break records.”

Yuuri couldn’t help cutting Victor a glare over Minako’s shoulder.

His scores _were_ high for Japanese nationals, and for Yuuri, but Victor still seemed to think Yuuri should have done better. “You could score higher. I thought you’d make 110 for sure.” He tapped his gloved finger to his lip as he regarded the stage, where the next performer was setting up. “I still think you should lower the number of effects in the long program.”

Unlike international competitions, at the national competition, Yuuri would perform the short and long programs in the same day. Which meant he had the time between the other competitors’ pieces and a short break before he would need to take the stage again. Yuuri wanted to go somewhere quiet and contemplate Victor’s advice, and to think about both the performance he’d been through and his upcoming one, but the press which had photographed him when Victor embraced him now wanted to ask him questions and take photos of him and his coach. He was just finishing up with the last of them when Minami found him backstage, flush-faced and wrapped once again in his warm-up cloak.

“Did you see me? Katsuki-senpai, did you see my performance?”

Minami had wanted Yuuri to see him perform? “Oh, no—sorry, I was being interviewed.”

Minami looked devastated. “But…I modeled my program on your _Lohengrin_ performance from three years ago. My costume too.” He pulled the panels of his cloak aside and revealed…yes, his costume indeed was a near-perfect replica of Yuuri’s own from that season.

 _Lohengrin_ , the year Yuuri hadn’t made it to the Grand Prix finals because he’d _caught himself on fire_ in Sochi.

“My dark past,” Yuuri whispered.

Minami’s expression turned fierce. “You don’t have a dark past. You’re amazing, Katsuki-senpai. You’re the most amazing storyteller Japan has ever seen, and I’ve watched all your reels. I’m going to be just like you someday. Better, even.” He aimed a shaking finger at Yuuri. “You can’t retire until I get good enough to qualify for the Grand Prix so I can meet you on the stage!”

Yuuri was so stunned he didn’t know what to do, what to say. 

Victor gave him space, which Yuuri appreciated. He spent some time backstage, watching the other performers finish, and he kept quiet as the four of them—Minako, Nishigori, Victor, and himself—went to a noodle stand for a quick lunch. He wished Minami good luck when he saw him backstage, his own cheeks tinting with blush as he saw how the praise affected his junior.

Then Yuuri retired to the roof of the building and rehearsed his routine alone, in silence.

As the highest scorer in the short program, his long program performance would be last—he wasn’t sure if he was glad or not to have the longest to wait. It meant he had a long time to think about things and make decisions—with Yuuri, this could mean time to think himself over a cliff. 

He wasn’t worried this time, though. He was torn between feeling stunned to discover someone looked up to him the way he’d looked up to Victor— _how_ was he good enough for such a thing—and feeling angry at Victor for suggesting he compromise himself. Intellectually he understood this was likely wise advice, but practically Yuuri chafed at the suggestion. 

He’d spent all summer learning those effects. They were the fruit of his tutelage under the great Victor Nikiforov. If Yuuri simply arrived with another elegant ballet performance—like every other Japanese storyteller, who could barely afford aether and managed a few years with professional coaches at best, let alone spent intensive summer trainings with one—what did that say about him? No. He couldn’t let everyone down that way.

But he didn’t want to see that lukewarm expression on Victor’s face again, either, the one that said, _that was adequate, but you and I both know you’re capable of more._

 _I can do this,_ Yuuri told himself, and the more he said it, the more he began to believe it.

When it was time to wait in the wings, Victor met him there, smiling. He fussed over Yuuri’s costume, smoothing his lapels and Yuuri’s hair. “Yes, you look quite lovely. Oh, but you need a bit more shine to your lips. May I?”

Yuuri nodded, holding still as Victor applied balm to his lips. He kept his gaze on the stage, where the performer before him was finishing up in an aether-explosion of stars, a double-barrel illusion. Yuuri’s final was meant to be a quad.

Unless he did as Victor asked and lowered all his technical elements.

“I’ll be watching,” Victor told him, and then it was time.

Yuuri didn’t remember taking the stage—he’d already entered the zone, and suddenly he was there. The starting tone sounded, the blue-white mist and frost-feel illusion rolling around him as he lifted his head and opened his eyes.

“My name is Katsuki Yuuri,” he said in English. “I’m twenty-three years old, and I’m a dime-a-dozen Japanese figure skater. And I’m frozen.” He extended his right hand, popped a gun, then his left, popped the other, and snowflakes fell like frozen ice crystals all round him, suspended in slow motion. 

Only the judges caught the triple pop of his gun, the one that started the music, and only the judges and those who understood how aether worked knew he continually rolled through his entire ballet movement, keeping the snowflake and music illusions alive. Everyone else was simply impressed.

Everyone except possibly for Victor, who had wanted him to make that effect a double.

“My name is Katsuki Yuuri.” Yuuri pushed the illusion harder, kept dancing, pushed his body too, to keep his movements beautiful as he continued his story. “My family and my community has saved to send me all over the world to represent Japan, but I’ve never found my feet the way I want. In fact, all too often—“ he let the aether go in a sickening crash and draped to the floor in a controlled ballet fall as he quickly hit the gun in another triple—spot, music, wind “—I fall down.”

He heard the audience intake its breath. _Good, good._ But he had so much left to go. And he’d missed the wind. It came in late, and he’d rolled it instead of flipped it.

A quad pop from the gun—snow, music shift, a second spotlight, and sakura blossoms that appeared in the middle of the air—and Yuuri lifted his head. “Then one day, something changed.”

He rose, following the sakura as he pushed the illusion around the room.

“One day I danced in an alley in Shanghai as thanks for an old woman who helped me—” He sent a whisper of an illusion across the sakura, a projection of himself dancing before a crowd in shadowed alleys. “—and the next thing I knew the focus of the world had shifted, this time looking right at me.”

The sakura began to move with him as he danced, a graceful ballet across the stage, carefully crafted with Minako and Victor both. “A new coach came halfway around the world to help me, to show me new ways to tell story.” He tossed out handfuls of effect, glittering stars that were nothing to the judges but made the audience gasp. “But what was most important were the changes that began within myself. I began to see the _world_ differently. It wasn’t any one person who changed me. It wasn’t even _me_ who changed me. It was every single person around me.”

Yuuri set off the gun as he leapt, a triple roll—stars, smoke, a soft rush of sound. “Love. It was love that changed me—being open to the love around me, and loving the others with me in return. I had lived me life on ice, too frozen to move, too afraid of making mistakes, thinking that only when I was perfect could I receive happiness. But somehow giving my heart to a stranger in a faraway place, sharing myself with her at that time when I was most low—this opened me in a way that has sent the universe pouring into me.”

He set the guns, readying the quad—a swell of chords, burst of light, more smoke, and a twinkling blue heart set in a roll behind him as he took his final pose. It was a tricky roll, but he could do it, he knew he could.

“I have known love, and it has changed me. I am better for it—” He started to roll the quad. “—and I will never be the same.”

He tried to take his final pose, but as he fired the last two pops and raised his arms, the aether caught in his sleeve, and the gun sent his wrist hard into his face. He felt the pain his nose instantly, a sharp, metallic pang, and he knew his nose was at least bleeding, if not broken. His eyes watered, and it took everything in him not to press his hands to his nose and eyes.

He didn’t, though. He blinked through the pain and struck his pose, breathing hard, lifting his head and sucking the blood back into his nostrils as best he could. As the crowd roared, he remained in place, accepting their praise, but he had eyes only for the man in the tan coat, standing at the rail, watching him.

_Please be proud of me, Victor. Please, oh please, be proud of me._

For a moment Yuuri had no idea how his coach would react. He couldn’t read Victor’s face—was he disappointed? Angry at him for not following his orders? Simply that unimpressed? But just when Yuuri had given up hope, Victor sighed and opened his arms, his face relaxing.

“ _Victor_ ,” Yuuri breathed, rushing to his coach. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but in his defense, half of those were from the pain in his nose. He truly thought he’d broken it now.

When Yuuri tried to leap into Victor’s arms, though, Victor winced and held him at arm’s length, reaching for a handkerchief instead. “Watch the nosebleed.” He ministered carefully to Yuuri’s injury, calling an assistant for cotton when it was clear the bleeding wasn’t going to stop without aid. Yuuri submitted to the nursing obediently, accepted praise from strangers and hugs from Minako and Nishigori, let Minami take photos with him. His scores were high, the highest of the competition by far, and he accepted his certificate of achievement with humble pride. But when he and Victor were finally alone backstage, he couldn’t take it any longer.

“Victor, please tell me what you thought of my performance.”

He’d caught Victor’s hand as he said this, and Victor turned back to him, his expression quiet. It was only the two of them amidst the ropes and curtains, though they could hear other people all around them. Victor held Yuuri’s hand as he regarded him, then eventually he spoke.

“You didn’t listen to me,” he said at last.

Yuuri’s heart quickened in his chest. “Not about lowering the effects, no. I did not.”

Victor smiled at him, chagrined, but there was pride there. “Your performance had many flaws, but only in the technical elements. Your artistic delivery was, as ever, amazing. You took my breath away.”

Now it was Yuuri’s breath that was absent. “Victor,” he whispered.

Victor touched Yuuri’s cheek. “We’ll work on handling the guns before the Cup of China.”

Yuuri leaned into Victor’s hand, fighting the urge to close his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed.

And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After 8,000 years, this poor fic is finally getting an update. So sorry it took so long. I'm going to try to be better about keeping up with it. 
> 
> In the meantime, I do have two other fics on here now, one finished, one also in progress. There is of course also the day job and all the fun reblogs on tumblr. (cullinankatsudon.)
> 
> I'm also going to start doing more meta posts and reviews on manga and anime and a review of Yuri on Ice again starting next week or whenever I get done preparing blog tour stuff for said day job. I'll probably put that on my Wordpress but will cross post on Tumblr and Myanimelist. (I'm also cullinankatsudon on Myanimelist.)
> 
> Okay now I have to go write fifteen more promo posts for a book tour. Not even kidding. Fun time over!


End file.
